NOM BLOG

Speaker Fox Takes Heat From SSM Activists in RI for Supporting Civil Unions

 

Will Marriage Equality Rhode Island kill a civil unions bill in that state?

ProJo reports:

"House Speaker Gordon D. Fox, in an emotional appeal to gay marriage advocates protesting outside his State House office, said that his decision to support civil union legislation was a sign of the strong opposition by both the state House of Representatives and the state Senate for gay marriage, and did not mean that he was stepping away from his drive for full-fledged marriage rights.

... The protesters urged Fox to put a bill that would grant gay couples full marriage rights to a vote before the full state House of Representatives, something that they say the speaker promised to gay marriage advocates and that has never been done before in state history.

But after months of saying that there was strong support in the House for gay marriage, Fox conceded that he did not have the votes to pass the lower chamber.

... But protester Wendy Becker, of Providence, was unmoved. She said she was "unwilling to put discrimination in our laws, which is what civil union does."

Becker urged the speaker to place gay marriage before House members, saying that the bill would never pass in the Senate, where its leaders have long fought against it, until it passed first in the House."

6 Comments