Tiverton (RI) school committee grants benefits to Mass. gay couple

[paineinthearse]

This is be huge. RI does not allow gay marriage, but it is recognizing a couple married in Massachussetts.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2005/02/11/tiverton_school_committee_grants_benefits_to_mass_gay_couple/

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Tiverton school committee grants benefits to Mass. gay couple
February 11, 2005

TIVERTON, R.I. --The town's school committee voted this week to grant health care benefits to a gay couple from Massachusetts. Cheryl McCullough, a health teacher and guidance counselor who retired from Tiverton schools in 1997, and Joyce Boivin were married in June in Massachusetts after that state allowed same-sex marriages. A few days later, McCullough asked that her benefits be extended to Boivin. The women live in Swansea.

Gay marriage is not allowed in Rhode Island, but Attorney General Patrick Lynch has indicated the state would honor such unions Tiverton school officials initially asked a Superior Court for an opinion on how to proceed. This week they said they would drop that request because of Lynch's advisory opinion in October that two retired Portsmouth teachers now living in Massachusetts can seek survivor's benefits for their same-sex spouses.

"The attorney general sent a pretty clear message that same-sex marriages of other states are not barred by public policy in Rhode Island," said Stephen Robinson, lawyer for the Tiverton School Department.

A spokeswoman for Rhode Island State Treasurer Paul Tavares said the Portsmouth and Tiverton cases were the only requests to be submitted since the Massachusetts same-sex ruling.