Photo courtesy of Patch.
Teresa Paiva Weed gave new state Senator William Conley the worst job in the legislature. He gets to be the fall guy for marriage equality this session as the x factor on the newly constituted Senate Judiciary Committee.
Five Senators will likely support marriage equality and four won’t. Conley is holding his cards tight for the time being. If he votes against it, it dies as a tie. If he bucks the Senate President, leadership can still intervene and kill the bill in a 6 to 6 tie. This scenario would be politically ugly for Paiva Weed.
But Conley is a former East Providence city councilor, so he’s not stranger to politics. Or voting on same sex marriage politics. In April 2011, the East Providence City Council debated a resolution to endorse marriage equality legislation at the State House, according to East Providence Patch.
Councilwoman Katie Kleyla introduced a resolution supporting the passage of marriage equality legislation by the General Assembly. “This is an issue of fundamental fairness,” she said. But several speakers, including the pastor of First Baptist Church in Rumford, opposed the resolution. “I don’t think you have the right to speak for me or for the people of East Providence on this issue,” one woman said. Kleyla then asked for the resolution to be tabled, which passed 3 to 2.
The post does not indicate which way Conley voted.
Kleyla told the Providence Journal that she thinks Conley will vote against marriage equality.
Conley is a former Townie city solicitor who was elected to the council in 2010. Patch has more on him.
Re, “This scenario would be politically ugly for Paiva Weed”
It’s too late for her, no matter what the outcome. Her legacy is already fixed in stone as being the one key person who kept the civil right of marriage away from LGBT Rhode Islanders for many years. How many children have been deprived of the legal protection of two parents because of Paiva Weed? How many adults have been denied the dignity of the legal protections we married folks take for granted upon the death of our spouse?
It is already too late for the legacy of Paiva Weed to be anything other than “ugly” on the matter of fundamental civil rights.
How can we not allow two people who love each other to marry? We are not granting them their rights and this should be fixed and it should be fixed now! As Portsmouth Citizen said there are children and spouses suffering because we do not acknowledge the fact that we are dealing with families.
They are real families with real issues. The way things stand now they are not able to partake in the legal rights that strait spouses have. Why is this? Because we still have a bunch of closed minded bigots working at the state house. They seem to think that their values are the only valid values. They live in a world that does not and should not exist any longer. They are the ones against “family values” as they are the ones keeping certain kinds of families from being acknowledged by the state.
Marriage equality should become the law of the land. The whole country should adopt laws that stop this discrimination now!
It takes about 5 minutes on the East Providence to find the April 5, 2011 journal of that council meeting. Council member Kleyla proposed a resolution in favor of legislation authorizing “same sex” marriage. She then moved to table her own resolution. According to the clerk’s journal, Council Member Conley opposed tabling the resolution, pointing out that the item was on the docket and citizens were present to address it. When the proponent of the legislation moves to table her own resolution . . . not quite sure how to analyze that.