Activists push for Ocean State gay marriage bill
Wooksocket Call
02-13-2009 21:02
By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — Don Laliberte and his partner Richard Corso say their relationship is no different than any other couple’s.

One difference, however, is that they have to explain that at a press conference, as they did Thursday in advance of a Marriage Equality rally in the Statehouse Rotunda.

“We own a house in Providence we share with our dog and two cats,” Corso said before a bank of microphones. “We are friendly with our neighbors and attend neighborhood meetings …We pay our bills. We pay our taxes. We love each other deeply and plan to spend the rest of our lives together.

“However,” he added, “we are denied the recognition heterosexual couples take for granted. This is not just about the more than 1,000 legal rights afforded to married couples, but denied to same-sex couples.

“It is also about the validity of the love we share with each other and the family we have formed. Our love is real. Our relationship is valid. We deserve the same rights and recognition as everyone else.”

That is why nearly 200 people turned out Thursday to show their support for legislation that would permit same-sex couples to marry in Rhode Island. This is the 10th year such legislation has been introduced in the General Assembly.

Advocates pointed to a poll taken last year they say shows more people in Rhode Island who support same-sex marriage than oppose it.

The poll, taken in July 2008 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, found that 49 percent of Rhode Islanders favor marriage rights for same-sex couples, while 39 percent are opposed. Even among Catholics, whose church leaders strongly oppose such unions, 45 percent say they are in favor, with 37 percent opposed.

The poll results also show that candidates’ positions on same-sex marriage have little impact on voters choosing candidates in General Assembly races.

According to a survey document distributed Thursday, a candidate’s position on gay marriage ranks last as a determining factor in voters’ decisions, behind issues such as the economy and jobs, government spending, reforming health care, reducing crime and education spending.
“The rhetoric of people who do not believe in equality,” said Marriage Equality Rhode Island board member Patrick Crowley of Lincoln, also a noted labor activist, “will try to scare political leaders saying there will be retribution at the polling booth” for those who approve same-sex marriage.

“That is simply not true. You do not need to be afraid for your position in order to stand up for justice. Stand with the majority of people in Rhode Island, stand up with a majority of the voters, stand up with your friends, your neighbors, the people that you love, stand up for doing the right thing and support marriage equality.”

Karen Loewy, of GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders) declared that “we are at a really exciting moment in the history of the civil rights movement in marriage equality. The time is right and the time is now.”
New England is uniquely situated to lead the rest of the country toward marriage equality, Loewy said, “combining a variety of strategies: through the courts, through the legislature, through public opinion, through changing hearts and minds.”

She said GLAD has set a goal of having marriage equality in all six New England states by 2012, a strategy called Six by Twelve. She said there is legislation introduced this year in all four New England states that do not have marriage equality. Massachusetts and New Hampshire already have such laws in one form or another.

Cranston Sen. Josh Miller, a co-sponsor of the Senate legislation, told the group, “Anything less than full marriage equality is nothing less than discrimination. … This is about your friends and neighbors and relatives.”
“People around the state support equal rights for their friends, for their families, for their co-workers,” agreed Kathy Kushnir, executive director of Marriage Equality of Rhode Island. “They want everyone to be treated equally.”

The Rev. Gene Dyszlewski, pastor of the Riverside Congregational United Church of Christ, told the gathering that “I believe that same-sex marriage is God’s will.”
He handed Rep. Arthur Handy, a sponsor of the House legislation, a declaration from more than 100 Rhode Island religious leaders “affirming that “same-sex marriage is in God’s plan for humanity.”

Speaking for the Rhode Island Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality, Dyszlewski said, “We feel as a profound moral fact that no essential feature of humanity is defective. Since sexual orientation is a naturally occurring characteristic of our humanity, each of us may say with firm religious conviction: ‘My sexual orientation, whatever it may be, is blessed by God.’”

Asked if the legislation would have a better chance at passing this year than it has in the previous nine, Crowley acknowledged that “there are a few changes that have to be made in a couple of particular offices, and once that happens we will be very successful, I believe. But that doesn’t mean we won’t keep fighting until that does happen.”

Asked which offices he was referring to, Crowley said, “Anyone who can wield a veto pen,” an obvious reference to Gov. Donald Carcieri, who has openly opposed same-sex marriage.