House Majority Leader Nicholas Mattiello echoes Speaker Gordon Fox and says no the votes for gay marriage weren't there, even in the house, but several in leadership disagree, as ProJo reports:

House Majority Leader Nicholas Mattiello, D-Cranston, echoing Fox, said it was questionable whether the votes were there in the House for a gay-marriage bill. “There are political realities,” he said Wednesday. “We have representatives from different constituencies and some of those constituencies indicated they were not ready for this.”

Mattiello declined to say on the record how close he thought the vote would be for gay marriage.

But at least three members of Fox’s leadership team who have been consistent supporters of gay-marriage legislation felt otherwise.

Rep. Jon Brien says the reason he backed down, is that Fox was afraid a SSM bill could be amended to refer the question to the people---and that is apparently still unacceptable to gay marriage supporters, even though they claim majority support in Rhode Island.