After stating that marriage won't pass in Rhode Island, the openly gay Speaker, Gordon Fox, is going to push a civil unions bill this year:
“I am the Speaker of the House and I am an openly gay man. This is very emotional for me,” he said. “But as speaker, I understand counting votes and what I can deliver for all of us. And I believe I am delivering rights to us today and it’s not killing the cause.”Given how the gays got screwed on marriage, the civil unions bill better reach his desk. Then, it can be challenged in court as separate and not quite equal. Rhode Island's legislature is in session until July 1.
Protester Wendy Becker, of Providence, begged him to put gay marriage to a vote, saying: “We need to let people do the right thing.”
Fox replied: “I understand that. This is the right thing for now. We’ll keep working.”
His move won support from both Governor Chafee, a strong advocate of same-sex marriage, and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, an opponent, but it was lambasted by the lead sponsor of the abandoned same-sex marriage bill, the protesters outside Fox’s State House office, and a phalanx of advocacy groups, including Marriage Equality Rhode Island.
As a same-sex marriage advocate, Chafee said he “had hoped that legislation enacting it would have reached my desk this year,” but he respects Fox’s political assessment and believes “passage of civil-union legislation would be a step forward for our state and I would sign such a bill if and when it reaches my desk.”
NOM and its benefactors in the Catholic Church are clucking about their "victory" in Rhode Island, but that will be short-lived. The trendline is moving our way -- and they know it. What happened in Rhode Island sucked, but we're going to prevail. NOM knows it. The Catholic Bishops know it. We know it.
And, I imagine Maggie, Brian and the rest of their band of haters will be spending all their time in New York, because that's the battleground. That's the big prize this year.
