Hundreds gather for the Marriage Equality Rhode Island march and rally in Providence. Josh Kilby, of Tiverton, leads the group in chants.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

PROVIDENCE — With the General Assembly scheduled to reconvene at the end of the month, supporters of same-sex marriage Saturday held a rally on the steps of the State House to try to put more heat on individual senators and representatives to come around to their cause.

About 150 people who support gay marriage and attended the rally pledged to sign postcards that will be sent to their legislators over the next few days to let them know that they want Rhode Island to allow men to marry men and women to marry women.

Rhode Island is the only state in New England that does not allow same-sex marriage. Although Governor Carcieri, House Speaker William J. Murphy and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed oppose legalizing gay marriage, other politicians in the state, including Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts and the openly gay mayor of Providence, David N. Cicilline, do.

A Brown University poll conducted in late May showed that even though Rhode Island is heavily Catholic, most Rhode Island voters favor same-sex marriage by a margin of 60 percent to 31 percent. But another poll — financed by a group opposing gay marriage — showed 43 percent of Rhode Islanders opposing same-sex marriage and only 36 percent supporting it.

Saturday, gay-rights supporters from all of the New England states except Maine joined Rhode Island activists in trying to advance the cause of marriage equality in the Ocean State. It is one of the most volatile issues the legislature has faced. In a brief interview on the State House steps, Kathy J. Kushnir, executive director of Marriage Equality Rhode Island, said she does not believe that the General Assembly will enact a gay-marriage law this year but that she hopes it will at least pass legislation, currently pending, that would give same-sex partners the right to claim the bodies of and make funeral arrangements for their loved ones.

“We hope this sends a message,” Kushnir said as dozens of gay-rights supporters, some bundled in winter coats and wearing ski hats, congregated on the State House steps. “We have people in crisis now — people who don’t have rights they need to take care of their families,” she said in reference to the funeral-arrangement bill.

Those who attended the rally toted signs with the names of the cities and towns where they reside in Rhode Island. The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” filled in the air. “This is not just a Providence issue,” Kushnir said. “It’s not a gay issue only. It’s a gay/straight issue, a civil-rights issue.”

No politicians spoke at the rally but Kushnir said that Lt. Gov. Roberts marched with the group from Burnside Park downtown up to Smith Hill. Cicilline and Lynch sent their support and Lynch’s brother, William J. Lynch, state Democratic Party chairman, was present.

Among the speakers at the rally was Ken Fish, of Warwick, a longtime gay-rights activist from Warwick who ridiculed Carcieri for his anti-gay marriage stance and decision to speak at a fundraiser Thursday for an anti-homosexual Massachusetts organization. In his speech, Carcieri said marriage is “not a civil right” and that families have the best outcomes when led by a mother and father.

Fish referred to Republican Carcieri as “Governor Carcinogen,” a man “who was barely reelected on the promise of creating 20,000 new jobs,” but who now presides over a state with a 13-percent unemployment rate. Fish also criticized the state’s legislative leaders for being “cowards all.”

Thanks to them, he said, gay people in Rhode Island are prevented from full participation in civil society.

tbreton@projo.com