PROVIDENCE -- In many ways, the day was ideal.
With the June sun setting behind them, the Warwick couple stood barefoot on a beach, embraced by a semicircle of friends and relatives. Wearing white linen, they recited poems, exchanged vows and slipped gold bands on their fingers.
But the union lacked a crucial element -- the sanction of the state. As a same-sex couple, Nicole M. Jones and Iris I. Rodriguez could not be legally married.
"It's disappointing, but what can we do?" Jones said yesterday. "We knew the reasons we were doing it: We love each other and want to spend the rest of our lives together."
They realize that, throughout their life together, they might never have the same benefits and privileges of a married couple: If Jones became gravely ill, Rodriguez would not automatically have a say in her medical treatment. If Rodriguez died, Jones would not get her pension payments. And now that Jones has given birth, Rodriguez must go through the process of adopting the boy.
But, they said, their hope has been reborn by Tuesday's ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which said same-sex couples are legally entitled to wed under the Massachusetts Constitution.
Jones and Rodriguez said their hope is that, some day soon, gay marriage is allowed in Rhode Island.
"I don't see why not," Jones said. "It's happening in Massachusetts. It's happened in Vermont. Why not Rhode Island?"
"It's a positive thing," Rodriguez said of the court ruling. "People concentrate on the word marriage. Call it what you want. What the word represents is what we want. Equality is basically what we want."
Jones said the most important benefit is not monetary. "It's just being recognized," she said. "We want to be recognized like everyone else. There is a stereotype that same-sex marriage is not real, it's a joke."
But, Jones said, "We want the same things for ourselves. We want the same things for our children. We are the same as everybody else."
After their June 28 commitment ceremony, Jones, 29, and Rodriguez, 34, went to Probate Court to legally change their last names to Rodriguez-Jones. And on Aug. 21, Jones, who was artificially inseminated, gave birth to a son, Isaac Rodriguez-Jones. Now Rodriguez has begun the adoption process, which they expect to take about six months.
Lise M. Iwon -- a Wakefield attorney who has testified about gay marriage at the State House and who teaches family law at Roger Williams University law school -- said same-sex couples are denied access to more than 1,000 federal benefits that are available to married couples.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has said on many occasions that the right to marry is a fundamental right," Iwon said. "But the reality is that it's limited to heterosexual couples."
Thanks to the 1996 "Defense of Marriage Act," the federal government is prohibited from recognizing same-sex marriages for purposes of Social Security, immigration, income tax, housing and federal parental leave benefits, she said.
The difference is clear in Social Security benefits, Iwon said. If a heterosexual couple is married for more than 10 years and one spouse dies, the surviving spouse gets the "survivor benefit" -- even if they are divorced at the time of the death, she said. By contrast, there is never a survivor benefit for same-sex couples, she said.
The difference is clear under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Iwon said. If gay soldiers die in Iraq, their partners get no benefits back home, she said.
Iwon, who has handled hundreds of gay-parent adoptions, including the Rodriguez-Jones adoption, said the difference is clear with adoptions, which include background checks of biological parents when same-sex couples are involved. But she noted Rhode Island does allow gay parents to adopt, whereas some states don't, saying, "Our Family Court has been receptive to society's changing mores."
The difference is also clear when it comes to property inheritance, Iwon said. She knows a gay man who had lived with his partner for 25 years in a house under the partner's name. When his partner died, the partner's kids inherited the house and evicted the man from the house, and he became homeless, she said. "If you are not married and you croak, your partner gets the boot," she said.
People won't get the boot if they have a will spelling out property inheritance, Iwon said, but people often put off such steps.
"For a gay couple to have even some of the rights and liberties of a heterosexual couple, they have to hire an attorney and execute myriad documents -- wills, powers of attorney and medical rights documents, just as examples," Iwon said.
Kate Monteiro, president of the Rhode Island Alliance for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, said the difference is also clear in wrongful death laws, which often do not allow same-sex partners to sue.
And Monteiro noted same-sex couples lack access to divorce courts. She said some people cite that as a plus, saying gay couples can break up without divorces. "But there's a reason for these courts," she said. "Divorce court is about making things as fair and equitable as possible. If you can't agree on how to divide up great-grandma's china, the divorce court will do it."
Monteiro said some people say same-sex couples should be glad they don't have to pay the "marriage penalty" in income taxes. "But we say, 'Yeah, that's fine.' This isn't about getting the best deal at Wal-Mart. It's about supporting the responsibilities people take on willingly to care for their partner and their families."
Monteiro said she thinks it's important to make marriage one institution for everyone. "Civil unions," which provide some but not all the benefits of marriage, would create two "separate but equal" institutions, she said.
"Clearly, we prefer one institution because we have learned in this country in the last century that 'separate but equal' is a lie," Monteiro said, drawing a comparison to the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, which held that racially segregated classrooms were inherently unequal.
Iwon equated Brown v. Board of Education to Tuesday's Massachusetts court ruling, saying, "The court is mandating the community to change." She said, "I am very encouraged and excited. It means there's hope for the future."
