Wendy Becker, left, and C. Kelly Smith, members of Marriage Equality Rhode Island, wait to testify yesterday.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — Supporters of same-sex marriage stepped up, one by one, to testify at the State House yesterday in what has become, for them, a frustrating annual ritual: advocating for a bill that has virtually no chance of passing.

Even the bill’s sponsor admitted as much in her remarks at the hearing’s end. “I believe fervently that this law will pass,” said Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence, “but it will take more time for that to occur.”

Perry offered words of encouragement for the three dozen people who testified. In 17 years at the State House, she said, “I have seen issues that, when I first started on them, appeared they would never be enacted into law, actually become law. … What is important is that you make this trip to the State House every year, and that you make the calls and write the letters that you have been doing.”

During the sometimes-adversarial two-hour hearing, only two people spoke against legalizing same-sex marriage. However, included in committee members’ packets of written testimony on the bill were copies of e-mails from 10 Rhode Island residents who wrote in to oppose the measure. Sen. Leo R. Blais, R-Coventry, told fellow Senate Judiciary Committee members: “Don’t be misled for a microsecond” by the ratio of supporters to opponents in the room.

Blais sponsored a bill, also heard yesterday, to write into state law an explicit prohibition of same-sex marriage. In the same section of state law that prohibits men from marrying their daughters, mothers and grandmothers, and women from marrying their sons, fathers and grandfathers, Blais’ bill would bar men from marrying other men and women from marrying other women.

Blais said his bill would pass if put to voters statewide as a constitutional amendment. “Are you willing to put it on the ballot?” he challenged the same-sex marriage advocates, who heckled him back, shouting “Bring it to the floor!” (The committee did not approve either bill for a vote on the Senate floor.)

Jenn Steinfeld, director of Marriage Equality Rhode Island, challenged the notion that the opponents of legalizing same-sex marriage are more numerous than supporters. She cited the advocacy group’s own 2006 opinion poll findings, which were that 45 percent of Rhode Island voters support same-sex marriage and 39 percent oppose it, and a Rasmussen Reports poll with similar findings.

Many who testified based their arguments on religious freedom. They said more than 100 of the state’s religious leaders had signed a letter supporting Perry’s bill, and made pointed references to the state’s dominant Roman Catholic population. (The Diocese of Providence opposes the measure.)

“In this state, founded by Roger Williams as a community open to religious diversity, we expect the individuals entrusted with civic authority will not impose their own religious beliefs on anyone, nor impose one religious belief on everyone,” said the Rev. Eugene T. Dyszlewski, pastor at the Riverside Congregational Church in East Providence.

Countered Blais: “You are certainly entitled to believe what you want to believe. It does not mean that we have to embody those beliefs in state statute.”

For Steinfeld, it was the eighth year in a row testifying on the issue. But she said the opinion issued in February by Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch gives same-sex marriage advocates new hope.

In response to a request by the state Board of Governors for Higher Education, Lynch wrote that the state should recognize same-sex marriages validly performed in Massachusetts, just as it would recognize marriages of heterosexual couples validly performed in other states.

Lynch’s opinion erodes part of the need to legalize same-sex marriage here, Steinfeld said, because it means same-sex couples married in Massachusetts qualify for all the legal rights that accompany marriage under Rhode Island state law. Steinfeld said her group would go to court to get Lynch’s opinion enforced if necessary, but so far, employers and hospitals have cooperated.

“Marriage is a magical word,” Steinfeld said. “It’s really amazing the doors that open up when you use it.”

Until Rhode Island’s same-sex couples can marry in their home state, Steinfeld said, lawmakers should rest assured: They’ll be back next year.

egudrais@projo.com