PROVIDENCE –– Governor Carcieri surprised political rivals this week when he told gay-rights activists he would consider comprehensive reforms giving many, if not all, of the rights of marriage to same-sex couples.
But the unexpected announcement from the Republican governor has found little support among Rhode Island’s gay community, reinforcing a division among gay-marriage supporters that could kill Carcieri’s idea before it’s even put to paper.
The measure, as practiced in other states, would give tax benefits, burial rights and hospital-visitation privileges to Rhode Island gay couples, but would not recognize their unions as marriage.
“It’s still not equal. Marriage is a straight civil-rights issue,” Kathy J. Kushnir, executive director of Marriage Equality Rhode Island, said Friday, a day after the governor’s surprise comments. “A new perspective would be treating all of the citizens of Rhode Island equally. That’s not what he’s doing.”
Carcieri on Thursday met privately for more than an hour with members of Queer Action of Rhode Island, a group that had recently labeled him “a bigot” for vetoing legislation that would have allowed domestic partners to make each others’ funeral decisions.
“Let’s see if we can find a way to solve that without discrete [pieces] of legislation every time something comes up. I just don’t think that is the right way to deal with it,” Carcieri said Thursday.
Citing as a possible model the “everything but marriage” referendum that won approval in the state of Washington earlier this month, he said: “I don’t know enough, yet. All I am saying is I understand the circumstances.”
The statement was “absolutely” an ideological shift, according to Susan Heroux, a member of Queer Action who attended the meeting.
“I think it’s very instructive that he has spent an hour and 15 minutes with gay people and he’s already understanding that the problem is bad enough that something needs to happen,” she said. “The governor is showing that when he listens, when he hears us, he will be open to thinking about things differently. He has a lot of what we consider outdated views.”
Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe downplayed the notion that the governor had changed his position.
“As far as I know, they’ve never asked the governor where he stands on these issues,” she said. “The focus has always been on marriage. This may be a shift on the focus of the conversation, but it’s not a shift in policy.”
It’s unclear if the governor would propose a legislative package aimed at domestic partners in the coming session, although any proposal would not be specific to same-sex couples, according to Kempe. Other states have broadened the definition of domestic partnership to include elderly residents who share a home but don’t have a romantic relationship.
“There may be some legislation out there we can build upon,” Kempe said.
Legislative leaders were as surprised as Heroux about Carcieri’s position.
“This is the first time the governor’s ever said anything like this, so he’d like to have a conversation with the governor,” said Larry Berman, speaking for House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, an openly gay proponent of gay marriage.
House and Senate leaders noted that they support overturning the governor’s veto blocking same-sex couples from handling each others’ burial decisions, although that final decision won’t be made until the part-time legislature returns in early January.
“There’s no question that the bill that was vetoed must be passed. That’s simple human decency to me,” Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts said, adding that she was surprised to hear of the governor’s position on domestic partnership.
“It sounded to me like he was open to some possibilities I hadn’t expected him to be open to,” she said, declining to say whether she would endorse an “everything but marriage” proposal. “I want to talk to the people I’ve worked hard with on the marriage issue to make sure that something less than what they’ve been aiming for will meet their needs in the short term, because, fundamentally, I want us all to have the same rights.”
The issue is complicated for Heroux, a 42-year-old Coventry woman who married her same-sex partner of seven years in Massachusetts two years ago.
“I think I deserve to be married. I don’t deserve to have some partial separate but equal thing. But at the same time, I don’t want to shut the door and say we’re not going to talk about things,” she said. “The [burial rights] bill solved a very immediate problem. I think there’s other legislation like that.”
But Carcieri has made it clear he opposes a piecemeal approach.
In the veto message on the burial bill, he wrote: “This bill represents a disturbing trend over the past few years of the incremental erosion of the principles surrounding traditional marriage, which is not the preferred way to approach this issue … If the General Assembly believes it would like to address the issue of domestic partnerships, it should place the issue on the ballot and let the people of the State of Rhode Island decide.”
Heroux, meanwhile, said she hopes to take this week’s lesson on the road.
“If people listen to our stories, they can begin to understand where we’re coming from,” she said. “When people understand the human problem of it, ultimately, they will want to talk about it. I would love to go to senior centers, church groups, women’s groups, whoever is interested in listening.”
