The attorney general bases his decision on the fact Rhode Island has no specific law or policy on same-sex marriage.

10:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 18, 2004

BY TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writer

Journal photo / Glenn Osmundson Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch addressed the media about same sex marriages at a press conference at the Pawtucket Country Club yesterday.

Rhode Island apparently will recognize same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts, Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch indicated yesterday.

But what that will mean in practical terms, such as state taxation of same-sex couples, remains unclear, Lynch said.

Answers to those questions -- the same questions dozens of Rhode Islanders have asked of his office in recent days -- can only be speculated on, Lynch said, since neither lawmakers nor judges here have yet dealt with the issue.

Lynch yesterday issued an interpretation of the state's marriage law that, if nothing else, seemed to underscore the confusion the issue promises the handful of states like Rhode Island that have no law explicitly banning same-sex marriage.

Soon after Lynch's four-paragraph statement reached reporters via e-mail, it sparked a response, apparently by accident, by Tom Connell, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office.

Connell's one-sentence e-mail, sent to the same reporters, insinuated Lynch was skirting the issue somehow: "You should enter that in a dance contest."

Lynch, in his statement, said that under the common practice of comity, in which one state recognizes the laws of another, Rhode Island "would recognize any marriage validly performed in another state unless doing so would run contrary to the strong public policy of this state."

Since Rhode Island has no specific law or policy now on same-sex marriage, that suggests those unions joined in Massachusetts would be recognized here, the statement said.

"To date," the statement went on, "the only marriages in Rhode Island deemed void involve bigamy, incest or mental incompetence, or marriages in which one or both parties never intended to be married."

Asked later at a news conference what he would tell a Rhode Island couple who married in Massachusetts and returned to live in the Ocean State, Lynch said:

"As the attorney general, I would tell them, they should seek [legal] counsel. I would tell them to attest truthfully to every question addressed to them, then I would wish them well."

Lynch said he was frustrated that he didn't have more definitive answers for people. But until Rhode Island laws are passed pertaining specifically to same-sex marriage, there will be more questions than answers.

"Let me say this. Every attorney general in the nation was asked this question. . . . I commented today. Did I answer everyone's question today? No, but under the law, as it is represented, I answered it as best I can . . . ."

Thirty-nine other states have so-called defense-of-marriage acts that define marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal yesterday declined to say whether his state can recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states because the issue isn't mentioned in state statutes and would require him "to make law, not interpret it."

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said in March that New York would recognize legal same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions.