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Via On Top:

Two gay marriage bills – one backing, the other prohibiting – in the Rhode Island Legislature are warming up to do head-to-head battle next week.

Both bills will be heard in the same state Senate Judiciary Committee starting on Thursday, February 26.

Rhode Island currently recognizes gay marriage in a roundabout way. Gay couples wishing to marry need only cross the border into neighboring Connecticut or Massachusetts. Those wedding vows are valid in the Ocean State, but getting a divorce in a state that does not officially offer gay marriage might prove contentious.

. . . Senator Leo Blais, a Republican from Coventry, is introducing legislation that would limit marriage to heterosexual couples by amending the state constitution and put an end to the loophole that allows gay and lesbian couples to marry in border states.

. . . The Rhode Island gay marriage debate has been going on for twelve long years. In 1997, former state Representative Michael Pisaturo, a Democrat from Cranston, introduced a gay marriage bill.

Providence’s openly gay mayor David N. Cicilline says he still believes in gay marriage, but thinks it might be time to look at civil unions or domestic partnerships.