YEAHHHH: NYTimes Breaking: Rhode Island Lawmakers Pass Bill to Allow Civil Unions for Gays

[Mira]

NYTimes Breaking: Rhode Island Lawmakers Pass Bill to Allow Civil Unions for Gays

Rhode Island Lawmakers Pass Bill to Allow Civil Unions for Gays

Less than a week after same-sex marriage was legalized in New York, the Rhode Island State Senate approved on Wednesday evening a bill allowing not marriage, but civil unions for gay couples, despite fierce opposition from gay-rights advocates who called the legislation discriminatory.

The bill, which already passed in the state’s House of Representatives and which the governor said he will likely sign, would grant gay and lesbian couples most of the rights and benefits that Rhode Island provides married couples. It was offered as a compromise this spring after Gordon D. Fox, the openly gay speaker of the Democratic-controlled House, said he could not muster enough votes to pass a same-sex marriage bill.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/us/30unions.html?emc=na

[gateley]

1. One step closer -- K&R! nt

[MineralMan]

2. Another compromise measure, as in Illinois, but still progress.

Sentiment, and the law, are moving in the right direction. As in Illinois, many couples will celebrate this partial victory, since it provides at least part of what they seek, even though it does not provide full marriage equality. If a marriage equality bill were possible to pass in RI, then I would not accept this, but I suspect such a bill would not have passed. I celebrate with the couples in that state who are celebrating this.

[LynneSin]

4. I think alot of this comes down to what has been passed already in the state

As the example I used below, Delaware has a damn DOMA on it's books (passed in 1996) that would take just a few more votes to get overturned. I think ultimately they wanted to make sure that same sex couples had all the same rights & privledges today and perhaps down the line we can get that DOMA crap overturned.

[MineralMan]

5. Yes. We have the same problem at the Federal level, with

the DOMA law. Getting rid of that both nationally and in the states which have similar state laws is a very important step. I'm hopeful that it will die in the current federal court proceedings. I'm not overly confident, however, despite President Obama's decision not to defend it. We shall see.

[LynneSin]

6. Exactly

It just worries me after what I read yesterday with what is happening in NJ. They have civil unions on bill and they're finding that people use loopholes to still discriminate claiming 'we didn't understand the law'. I'm hoping that here in Delaware the law is written 100% clear that civil unions are the same as marriage when it comes to all the benefits that you get when you marry.

[LynneSin]

3. They had to do the same thing in Delaware, but the bill makes everything equal but the word

I wish it was for marriage equality but unfortunately Delaware's passed DOMA type laws a few decades ago. So to make it full marriage equality we would have needed something like 3/5 of the vote to overturn the bill; whereas a simply majority to pass civil unions. But the good thing is here in Delaware they wrote the bill to make sure that it was still 100% equal in every other way. It'll work for now and then hopefully in a few years we can go for marriage equality (ie - call it a marriage instead of civil unions).

But congrats to Rhode Island for making it happen. Whether it's marriage or civil unions we need to make sure we get this done.