Sorry, but I'm leaving you standing there.
"In R.I., hopes fading for gay marriage bill" by Michael Levenson, Globe Staff / June 28, 2011
If any state would seem poised to approve gay marriage, it’s Rhode Island.
It has an overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature, the nation’s first openly gay House speaker, a governor who strongly supports same-sex marriage, and two New England neighbors that allow gay couples to wed.
Instead, the state is expected this week to approve civil unions, effectively killing gay marriage legislation with an attempted compromise that has provoked strong opposition from both sides of the issue.
While New York injected new life into the gay rights movement Friday by approving same-sex marriage, Rhode Island’s torturous debate underscores the rocky path the issue has taken in New England, a historically liberal region some activists once believed would be a gay marriage bastion by 2012.
Is that anything like real torture?
Related: New York Goes Gay
Four out of the six New England states allow gay marriage and two, Rhode Island and Maine, do not. And their prospects for approving same-sex marriage are not imminent.
Voters in Maine repealed their gay marriage law in a 2009 referendum, six months after it was signed by the governor, and gay rights activists are still plotting their next steps there.
“What is it about democracy that these groups don’t understand?’’
Rhode Island activists on both sides of the divide are fighting the civil union bill and believe gay marriage legislation may not be revived again until next year, at the earliest.
Hopes for passage were crushed in April when Gordon D. Fox, who came out as gay in 2004 and was elected speaker of the House last year, abruptly reversed course, stunning gay rights activists....
So did he.
--more--"
Update: In compromise, R.I. approves civil unions for same-sex couples
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