 Rhode Island Rep. Arthur Handy |
Marriage equality is on the Rhode Island House committee’s agenda today. ThinkProgress reported state lawmakers are considering several bills dealing with civil unions, marriage—and even divorce.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Arthur Handy, would allow same-sex marriage, legally recognize previously performed civil unions as marriages, while also giving marriages and civil unions performed elsewhere legal recognition. With that said, another proposed bill would allow those in legally recognized gay marriages to divorce in Rhode Island.
Yet another bill would scrap an amendment to Rhode Island’s civil union legislation, which permits some organizations to refuse services to gay and lesbian couples in civil unions based on religion.
Currently, Rhode Island doesn’t legally recognize gay marriages. It does, however, legally recognize civil unions, which was signed into law by Governor Lincoln Chaffee in July 2011, as a compromise after the House was unable to conjure enough votes to support the marriage equality bill. Even so, the civil union law’s broad religious exemption has forced couples to travel outside the state in order to get full marriage equality, and, according to the ACLU, only 46 couples had obtained a civil union as of February 2012.
“The latest statistics make abundantly clear that Rhode Island’s law is a textbook example of how not to treat gay and lesbian partnerships,” ACLU executive director Steven Brown said at the time. “Not only have three states in the past year adopted much more meaningful and stronger civil union laws, but adoption this past year of new marriage laws in New York and Washington is placing Rhode Island even farther behind the times. Rhode Island must join its New England neighbors and provide true marriage equality to gay and lesbian couples before our law becomes even more of an embarrassment.”
Should the legislation pick up the same momentum as it did in Washington and Maryland, Governor Lincoln Chafee has already said he would sign a gay marriage bill into law.
Photo: rilin.state.ri.us
