The lower House of the Rhode Island legislature
approved a civil unions bill by a lopsided vote of 62-11 over the objections of several LGBT activists who had hoped that open;y gay Speaker Gordon Fox would be able to shepherd a marriage equality bill through his chamber but
he announced late last month that there were not the votes this year to enact such a bill and that he would support civil unions instead.
Gay marriage advocates tried unsuccessfully to resurrect the gay marriage legislation during House debate. But their procedural move failed after House Speaker Gordon Fox, who is openly gay, ruled it out of order. A vote to overrule Fox failed 23-47.
Rhode Islanders opposed to civil unions gathered outside the House chamber during the two-hour debate to pray and sing religious songs. Rev. Santos Escobar, a pastor at Cranston's Abundant Life Church, said lawmakers were defying public opinion.
"They have ignored us," he said. "But we will remember how they voted in the next election."
Critics in the House warned that civil unions would prompt legal challenges designed to legalize gay marriage. Rep. Arthur Corvese, D-North Providence said civil unions were indistinguishable from marriage, and threated a "fundamental building block of society."
"If the founding fathers were alive today they would be rolling over in their graves," he said.
Opponents of civil unions proposed asking voters to weigh in on civil unions. Their request was rejected.
The debate was at times emotional, with lawmakers clashing over political pragmatism, Constitutional rights and personal stories. Rep. Michael Chippendale, R-Foster, voted against the bill in the House Judiciary Committee. But Thursday night he told his colleagues compassion made him change his mind.
"I'm a Republican. I'm a conservative. I was a no vote," he said. "If my lord Jesus Christ was here, he would say, what you do to the least of my people you do to me... I don't have that right."
The debate now moves to the Senate, which had been seen as unlikely to support gay marriage. Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, has opposed gay marriage but supports the civil union bill and predicts it will win broad support.
A recent poll in Rhode Island
showed nearly 60 percent support for marriage equality. Rhode Island and Maine are the only states in New England which do not have marriage equality. I support moving forward with civil unions legislation but also think that Speaker Fox should also allow a bill on marriage equality as well.
