Rhode Island Marriage Equality Bill Clears 1st Hurdle

Rhode Island (along with Illinois and Delaware) is a state which is likely to make some significant progress towards enacting marriage equality in 2013. The openly gay Speaker of the House Gordon Fox has promised to make passing a bill to enact marriage equality in Rhode Island a priority in the current session, and today a House legislative committee unanimously advanced  HB 5015 for  a vote of the full House on Thursday January 24th.

The Governor also supports marriage equality and the President of the State Senate has promised to allow a vote in her body on the legislation, even though she personally does not support equal treatment for same-sex couples under the law.

Interestingly, a dozen years ago, a Rhode Island legislative committee considered a marriage equality bill and the vote was 19-1 against, with the lone affirmative vote being cast by now Congressman David Cicilline, who was an openly gay state legislator at the time.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God