Rhode Island Is Ready for Marriage Equality

by Michael Jones · 2010-08-18 11:42:00 UTC
Topics:

Five states. That's how many places in the country currently recognize same-sex marriage -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire -- as well as the District of Columbia. California, as we all know, is a bit up in the air, pending the appeal process for the Proposition 8 court case.

But beyond these states, where are the next battlegrounds for marriage equality?

One of them is most definitely going to be Rhode Island, once a new Governor takes over after the November 2010 election. That means that in Rhode Island, marriage equality may be just a few mere months away.

And you know what? That couldn't be cooler with Rhode Island's citizenry. At least that's according to a new poll issued by the Rhode Island Marriage Coalition, along with the legal group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), and the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. They note that in the past two years, support for same-sex marriage in Rhode Island has skyrocketed, to the point where a full 59 percent of the state's population favor legalizing marriage equality for LGBT people.

"As many of Rhode Island’s sister states have moved toward equality, the majority we see here is not all that surprising. Rhode Island voters clearly are ready for change," GLAD writes in their announcement that released the poll's results.

GLAD is quick to note that it's not just younger voters who are down with marriage equality. It's women. It's Catholics. It's Independents. In other words, support for marriage equality knows no gender, religion, or political party grounds. Rather, it cuts across all demographics and voting blocs, which means that in Rhode Island, support for same-sex marriage has not only reached a tipping point ... it's crested it.

Current Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri has been essentially the one road block to marriage equality in the state. Gov. Carcieri, who has regularly joined hands with official hate groups like Mass Resistance and other anti-gay groups like the National Organization for Marriage, has been one of the more anti-gay Governors in the country. He even vetoed a bill that would have allowed LGBT people to plan the funerals of their deceased partners.

But Carcieri is also term-limited, meaning that come 2011, he will no longer have the power to stop marriage equality legislation from moving forward in the state. And the leading candidates on the Democratic side, as well as a leading Independent candidate, have all expressed support for passing marriage equality legislation.

So it looks good. If I was a betting man, I'd put my money down on Rhode Island to be the next state in the country ready to join the marriage equality club.

Photo credit: taberandrew

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Mary Cheney Must Balance the Personal with the Political
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (3)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.