A proud day to be a Rhode Islander
What a wonderful afternoon it was yesterday in Rhode Island. It was warm and sunny and flowers were bursting through the dirt and blooming from the branches of trees, and the tide was high as a full moon began to rise over Narragansett Bay. And, at long last, the state Senate gave its blessing to [...]
Marriage equality: this is it!
Thousands of letters, tens of thousands of phone calls to legislators, and countless hours of hard work have all led up to this moment. After yesterday’s 7-4 vote in the Judiciary Committee, S-38, the bill that finally extends the freedom to marry to all loving and committed couples, will be voted on today by the [...]
Rhode Island will win marriage equality today
Rhode Island will remove the last obstacle standing in the way of marriage equality today when the full Senate votes today at 4 p.m. If I’m right, we’ll become the 10th state in the nation – but the last in New England – to abolish same sex marriage discrimination. “We think that when the vote [...]
Big vote for marriage equality is today
For Rhode Island progressives, it’s the most widely-anticipated day of the 2013 legislative session. For anyone who values equal treatment under the law, it’s even bigger than that. Today is the day the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on marriage equality. The House already passed it overwhelmingly, the governor is a big supporter too and the [...]
NOM, Chris Plante: bark is worse than their bite
NOM-RI’s Chris Plante is becoming increasingly desperate in his efforts to block marriage equality in Rhode Island. The Westerly Sun reports on Plante’s newspaper ads that contained unveiled political threats against Republican Senator Dennis Algiere: If he ends up voting ‘yes,’ we will do what we can to unseat him. He will have broken with [...]
CoC leader: ‘Discrimination is bad for business’
The Rhode Island business community has overwhelmingly endorsed marriage equality, and largely stands opposed to the religious exemptions in the Ciccone bill. John Duffy, president of the PR firm Duffy & Shapley and chairman of the Greater providence Chamber of Commerce was quite clear, “Discrimination is expensive and bad for business,” he said on a [...]
Labor Vision on marriage equality
To get ready for the big marriage vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday watch this great Labor Vision (for which I am a sometime contributor!) segment on why local labor unions are working so hard get same sex marriage passed this year. Jim Parisi, of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health [...]
Help stop the bullying of LGBTQ students
The Day of Silence is an annual protest organized by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, to protest the bullying of LGBTQ students in High Schools and college campuses across the country. The event, originally a grassroots effort started in 1996, was adopted by GLSEN in 2000 and in 2013 the 18th Day [...]
Kiwis passes marriage equality, sings love song
Wouldn’t it be great if marriage equality advocates broke out in song from the gallery seats in the senate chambers, like they did in New Zealand? The Kiwis became the 14th country to lift the ban on same sex marriage, according to ThinkProgress which posted this video of activists leading the parliament in a traditional [...]
How the right pushes for exemptions to equality
Marriage equality advocates took lot of hope from April 8th’s front page ProJo article in which Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed anticipated “a full Senate vote on whether to legalize same-sex marriage by the end of April.” Good news indeed, but one needs to continue reading for the unpleasant bit. Paiva Weed is concerned [...]
Rhode Island Religious Leaders Stand Up For Love
On Sunday Rev. Geoffrey Black, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, and Rev. Peter Morales, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association spoke at a rally at the First Unitarian Church in Providence on Benefit St. Though opponents of marriage equality often cloak their arguments in dogmatic, Bible-inspired rhetoric it is important [...]
Warwick City Council Endorses Marriage Equality
The Warwick City Council last night became the latest to endorse marriage equality. By doing so, the Council joins a very long list that includes mayors, municipalities, churches, religious leaders, the governor, the House of Representatives and a majority of Rhode Islanders. In other words, pretty much the entire state except the Catholic Church and [...]
MassResistance Asks NOM To Back Hate Speech
When asked directly by Joe Siegel back in 2009 if NOM-RI is a hate group, Christopher Plante, who runs the local affiliate of the anti marriage equality group NOM (National Organization for Marriage) said, “I don’t believe that at all. Do I think that there are extreme people on both sides of the movement that [...]
Marriage Not Only Issue For LGBTQ Community
With the words “marriage equality” on the minds and tongues of thousands of passionate progressives, in Little Rhodey and the rest of the nation, we must remind ourselves that LGBT folks face a variety of other important issues. Sadly, studies have shown that LGBT people are 2 to 4 times as likely to commit suicide, [...]
Tobin Urges State To Wait For Marriage Equality
Marriage Equality in Rhode Island is going to happen. The forces fighting against the rising tide of love and equality are starting to realize this. Yesterday election forecasting wunderkind Nate Silver had a piece in the New York Times that crunched the numbers and came to a conclusion that should give pause to opponents: marriage [...]
A Glimpse Into The Future For Marriage Equality
Dateline: June, 2023. Governor Frank Ferri is headlining a small event at the State House celebrating the 10th anniversary of the SCOTUS decision striking down DOMA and California’s bad on gay marriage. Gov. Ferri gives a brief statement commemorating the occassion, and the handful of activists who fought so hard for equality here a decade [...]
Metts Opposes Marriage Equality On ‘Biblical Principles’
Judge Ronald R Lagueux, in his ruling in Ahlquist v. City of Cranston that removed the prayer banner from the walls of the auditorium at Cranston High School West, described the Cranston School Committee’s open meetings to discuss the prayer banner as at times having the tenor of “a religious revival.” This is something those [...]
Supreme Court Considers Marriage Equality Debate
What a day for the LGBT community! The Supreme Court heard challenges to California’s Proposition 8 today, and tomorrow it will hear arguments against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). (The audio and transcript are available here, if you have time to check them out!) Let’s hope that Chief Justice John Roberts kept his gay [...]
Fine Line Between Hate Group And ‘Faith Alliance’
Last week, while waiting at the State House in the long line that formed to give testimony at the Senate Judiciary Marriage Equality bill hearing, I decided to check out the website of MassResistance, a group instrumental in the loud, raucous anti-Marriage Equality rally held when the House took testimony on the issue back in [...]
Sen. Lombardi Interviewed On Anti-LGBT Website
State Senator Frank Lombardi (D-Cranston), is expected to be a strong “no” vote on S0038, the Marriage Equality bill to be heard during tonight’s Senate Judiciary committee hearing. In the past he has related his vote to his strong Catholicism, but last week he was interviewed by MassResistance, an anti-LGBT hate group as identified by [...]
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