PROVIDENCE — Two days after vetoing a bill giving domestic partners the right to make funeral decisions for each other, a conciliatory Governor Carcieri told a gay-rights activist group he is open to supporting a domestic-partnership law that bestows many if not all of the rights of marriage, without the right to marry.

“Maybe it’s something we should consider,” said Carcieri, after meeting privately Thursday for more than an hour in his office with a half-dozen members of Queer Action of Rhode Island, a group that in the immediate aftermath of his veto had labeled him “a bigot.”

Among those attending was Mark Goldberg, the Providence East Sider whose five-week battle to claim the body of his partner of 17 years from the state morgue, had sparked the vetoed legislation.

Citing as a possible model the “everything but marriage” referendum that won approval in the state of Washington earlier this month, Carcieri said: “I don’t know enough, yet. All I am saying is I understand the circumstances. I understand the difficulties” that can arise for same-sex couples and others — such as widows living with widowers, and widows with other widows — outside the legal framework of a traditional marriage.

“Let’s see if we can find a way to solve that without discreet [pieces] of legislation every time something comes up. I just don’t think that is the right way to deal with it,” he said.

Washington’s underlying domestic-partnership law, which the legislature passed in 2007, provides hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when there is no will. The referendum extended the law to probate and trusts, community property and guardianship.

While Susan Heroux, the spokeswoman for Queer Action, made it clear that her group is hoping for more movement on the governor’s part, she said the meeting was civil, and she was encouraged that Carcieri seemed willing to continue talking.

“I think we are interested in getting all of the rights, not just some of them,” said Heroux, 42, of Coventry, who married her same-sex partner of seven years in Massachusetts two years ago.

But Heroux said she was “really happy” that “they are willing to look at our issues. They are willing to talk to us … I think that that is progress no matter what, because if we can even help him to understand how some of the language he uses is hurtful, that is going to go a long way to helping gay people in Rhode Island.”

Queer Action sought the meeting after Carcieri spoke at a fundraiser last month for the Massachusetts Family Institute. On its Web site, the institute supports the “healing” of those “plagued by same-sex attraction,” opposes efforts to “normalize homosexual behavior,” and calls homosexuality an “unhealthy practice” that is “destructive to individuals, families and society.”

As it turned out, the meeting date fell two days after Carcieri sparked another firestorm of criticism by vetoing a bill to allow domestic partners the right to claim the remains and make funeral decisions for each other. In his veto message, Republican Carcieri said: “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,” he wrote.

Carcieri took issue with the definition of a domestic partner as “a person who, prior to the decedent’s death, was in an exclusive, intimate and committed relationship with the decedent” for at least a year, saying a year “is not a sufficient duration to establish a serious bond between two individuals ... [relative to] issues regarding funeral arrangements, burial rights and disposal of human remains.” He also questioned “how it would be ascertained in many circumstances whether [a couple] had been in a relationship for year.”

In its angry response to Carcieri’s veto, Queer Action called him a “bigot” and said his actions belie his oft-heard statement “that he does not discriminate against gay people.”

“First, the governor raises money for an anti-gay hate group in another state, and now he proves that he is motivated more by bigotry than caring for his fellow citizens with this veto action,” Heroux said.

After an unrelated event earlier Thursday, Carcieri said he didn’t want to discriminate against anyone.

The bill was prompted by the tale Goldberg brought to the General Assembly in February of his battle to convince state authorities to release his partner’s body to him for cremation after his suicide. Goldberg said he tried to show the police and the state medical examiner’s office “our wills, living wills, power of attorney and marriage certificate” from Connecticut, but “no one was willing to see these documents.”

After Goldberg’s testimony, state lawmakers agreed to add funeral-decision rights to the litany of Rhode Island laws that already provide access to health insurance and survivor benefits to domestic partners, with the House voting 63 to 1, with state Rep. Arthur Corvese, D-North Providence, as the lone dissenter, and the Senate, 38 to 0.

After meeting Goldberg in person and hearing of all the legal documents he had, Carcieri said he could not understand the Health Department’s handling of the case, and would ask his staff to look into it.

While it remains unclear whether House and Senate leaders will seek to override the governor’s veto, House Majority Leader Gordon Fox said: “Personally, I favor an override of this legislation. I look forward to meeting with Speaker Murphy and the Senate leadership in the near future to review all of the vetoes and discuss our next course of action.”

An openly gay man, Fox is the chosen successor of House Speaker William J. Murphy, who has announced his intent to exit after next year. Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed said she, too, is “prepared to ask for an override.”

kgregg@projo.com