Forget about a marriage equality bill making it out of the Senate this session, such legislation hasn’t even been heard in committee this year. It was introduced on February 16, but still hasn’t received its customary hearing.
“I think you know what my position is on this,” said Sen. Michael McCafffrey, a Warwick Democrat, when asked for his position on marriage equality. It is well-known that McCaffrey, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, doesn’t support the bill.
The next hurdle is that several other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee don’t love it either. Sen Harold Metts is on record as not supporting it, and Sen. Paul Jabour, a Democrat who represents Federal Hill and the West Side, told me he “still prefers civil unions.”
Jabour said he’s still weighing whether or not to support actual marriage equality.
Sen. William Walaska, a conservative Democrat from Warwick who is also on the Judiciary Committee, wasn’t tipping his hand, saying, “You’re asking me about a vote that isn’t on the floor yet. I’d have to look at the legislation.”
Even Sen. Erin Lynch, a Warwick Democrat who co-sponsored such a bill last year, wouldn’t fully commit this year, saying she supports marriage equality in theory but that “it depends on the language of the bill.”
Outside of the committee, there are a number of Democrats who don’t support marriage equality, including Sens. Dominick Ruggerio, the majority leader, from North Providence, Frank Ciccone, of Providence and Louis DiPalma, of Middletown.
Ciccone said he will submit a bill soon that would reverse Gov. Chafee’s executive order that recognizes same sex marriages performed in other states. “I think the governor exceeded his authority,” he said, noting a recent court case before the state Supreme Court. “I don’t think an executive order can supersede a Supreme Court decision.”
Of course, there’s also Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, who wouldn’t even answer my questions last night at the State House.
By the way, I think every Senator I just mentioned is Catholic (I’m not sure about Metts or Lynch). And, it’s worth noting, there is no shortage of GOP support for marriage equality in the chamber. Sens. Christopher Ottiano, a Portsmouth Republican, and Dawson Hodgson, a socially-liberal Republican who represents East Greenwich and North Kingstown, would support marriage equality if it came to a floor vote. Nick Kettle, of Coventry, said he likely would too, but only after taking the pulse of his constituents.
“Probably two handfuls,” is the way Sen. DiPalma described it to me when I asked him about the opposition to marriage equality in the Senate. Based on my very informal whip count, that sounds about right. The President, the entire congressional delegation, the governor and the House all would support marriage equality in Rhode Island. But “probably two handfuls” of Catholic state Senators still stand in the way.
I don’t understand the opposition to this whole thing. No one is asking the Catholic church to marry homosexuals. We’re asking the State to pass a law which grants the same legal status to homosexual couples that are granted to heterosexual couples.
Has there been any talk from citizens of any such state, like gays in NC perhaps, about suing their respective state under the 14th Amendment?
Metts is not a Catholic. He’s a deacon at Congdon Street Baptist Church. As I said the other day, Metts is oddly conservative for someone who is usually described as progressive. His religious beliefs certainly don’t lend themselves to progressive positions on many social issues.
Where are the primary challengers? This is pretty easy to fix folks. If the gay and lesbian community really cared about this, they’d bankroll a strong challenger to Paiva-Weed and this would all be over very quickly.
Gotta ask again the obvious:
Where is Ed Pacheco on this? Nowhere because he’s too much of a coward to take on these Senators.
The Senate is full of hypocritical DINOs. Get them out! Starting with both Paiva-Weed and Fox, who though gay is only concerned about protecting his speakership. Same with some gay staff of Paiva-Weed. I believe I was recently gerrymandered into Harold Metts district and will work in the neighborhood to expose him.
Kettle is lying. When he unseated Blais in the Republican primary, he signed a card from Marriage Equality RI stating that he supported marriage equality. He thus was endorsed by MERI’s PAC in the general election (the Democrat running also said that he supported it and was also endorsed.) Then, after Kettle won office, he stated to reporters that he did not support it. He will say anything to get elected and should not be trusted. Walaska is just refusing to answer the question because he knows you are writing for a liberal website. He has never supported LGBT rights and won’t start now.
Even though we have Bishop Tobin (who never met a microphone he did not want to put to his mouth) and his cheerleaders like John DePetro, this issue is truly an issue of civil rights and is not necessarily a Catholic issue. After all, MA has a higher percentage of Catholics in their population than RI does now, and they enjoy Marriage Equality. This issue is, and remains, a civil rights issue with some folks (“straights”) having more “equal” rights than others in RI. Religion should be voluntarily supported and acted upon as a product of free will. When the ruse of religion used to promote hate, intolerance, or to force someone who is reluctant to do something to act in a manner contrary to their will it is a tool of evil. As Roger Williams stated in 1670, “Forced religion stinks in God’s nostrils.”. The stench of intolerance from our local GA is just a part of the prevailing winds let out from conservatives in general as several studies have demonstrated the intolerance and “black/white” (pun semi-intended) mindset of conservatives in general. It is most likely a genetic flaw.
Daninprov and forsanri are right in suggesting that the progressives of RI need to (Pava)Weed out the haters. Primaries are a good start, Whose in?