PROVIDENCE — The state Supreme Court will hear arguments this morning in Rhode Island’s first same-sex divorce case.

Lawyers for Margaret R. Chambers and Cassandra B. Ormiston are scheduled to appear before the high court at 9:30 a.m.

The Supreme Court has denied motions from the attorney general and others to participate in today’s arguments, courts spokesman Craig N. Berke said Friday.

The court will hear only from Chambers’ lawyer, Louis M. Pulner, and Ormiston’s lawyer, Nancy Palmisciano, who agree on the basic issue before the court.

Berke has said it’s unusual — but not unheard of — for the court to allow friends of the court to participate in oral arguments.

The arguments will take place in the Supreme Court courtroom on the seventh floor of the Licht Judicial Complex at 250 Benefit St., and the court has arranged for overflow seating in the adjacent Bourcier Conference Room, where the live proceedings will be displayed on a screen, Berke said. The hearing is expected to last up to an hour.

Observers say the case, which has attracted national attention, marks the first time a same-sex couplemarried in Massachusetts has sought a divorce in another state.

Chambers and Ormiston, who live in Providence, married in Fall River in May 2004, shortly after Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. They filed for divorce in Rhode Island Family Court, and in December, Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. asked the Supreme Court whether his court had jurisdiction to hear the matter.

The Supreme Court sent the case back to Family Court to answer a series of factual questions and to clarify the question of law that the high court is being asked to consider. The question is now worded this way: “May the Family Court properly recognize, for the purpose of entertaining a divorce petition, the marriage of two persons of the same sex who were purportedly married in another state?”

The court invited the governor, the attorney general and all other interested people and organizations to weigh in with friend-of-the court briefs. The court received 16 briefs by the initial deadline from groups ranging from the Marriage Law Foundation, based in Orem, Utah, to Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, based in Boston.

In their legal briefs, Governor Carcieri and Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch agreed that a state court could grant the two women a divorce without answering the highly charged question of whether a same-sex marriage performed in Massachusetts should be recognized in Rhode Island.

But Carcieri and Lynch differed sharply over what the outcome of the case should be if the Supreme Court does take up the larger issue.

Carcieri, a Republican and a Catholic who has opposed bills to legalize same-sex marriage, argued that Family Court should not recognize the marriage, saying, “Marriage as a legal union of one man and one woman is clearly the bedrock of Rhode Island family law. Because of the pervasiveness of this position throughout its family law statutes, Rhode Island has a strong public policy against recognition of any other marriage than that between one man and one woman.”

Lynch, a Democratic and a Catholic who has a sister who married a woman in Massachusetts, argued that Family Court should recognize the marriage, saying, “The crucial issue is whether there is a public policy in this state that is so strong as it will require Rhode Island to except same-sex marriage from the traditional respect and recognition it has shown to laws of its sister states. Rhode Island’s case law and legislative enactments do not support such a finding.”

efitzpat@projo.com