IN RESPONSE to an unsolicited question submitted to my office by the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, I issued a legal opinion stating that under current state law, the Ocean State would recognize a marriage validly performed in Massachusetts, although this marriage might not be valid if it had been performed in Rhode Island. Answering this question entailed researching our state’s laws, as well as our current public policy, toward same-sex couples.

In issuing this opinion, I was fulfilling a constitutional duty I was elected and entrusted to fulfill. I did not issue it in response to a hypothetical question. It was not merely a philosophical exercise. It was not a political statement. It was a real question about real people — about real rights and the potential denial of these rights.

Understandably, because of the intensity of the debate surrounding same-sex marriage, this opinion has been discussed in various forums many times since I issued it.

Consider Lincoln C. Oliphant and Joseph Cavanagh, who have urged Journal readers to reject “my” stand on gay marriage (“Lynch is absurd on same-sex marriage,” April 20). I write to respond to this, which, unfortunately, was merely an attack masquerading as authentic legal analysis.

Oliphant and Cavanagh should have labeled their commentary for what it was: their rejection of the rights of gay and lesbian people in Rhode Island.

Unlike my advisory opinion, their piece was a completely biased, and sanctimonious, analysis of a complex legal issue that deserves much high thought and scrutiny. Their simplistic diatribe invites the inference that it is somehow more worthy of the label “legal analysis” than the advisory opinion by my office after months of research.

Even worse, not only did their opinion piece lack any legal basis but also the keystone of their premise is patently false. They conveniently ignored a Sept. 29, 2006, decision by a Massachusetts Superior Court that ruled that a same-sex couple from Rhode Island could be validly married in Massachusetts.

In doing so, Oliphant and Cavanagh resurrected a discriminatory 1913 law upon which to base their rejection of gay marriage and lay claim to a legal prohibition of Rhode Island same-sex couples from getting married in Massachusetts. I label the law that they relied upon as “discriminatory” not because it has any bearing on my opinion about gay marriage, but because it was passed to bar interracial marriages. Surprisingly, they don’t seem to understand how revealing their reliance upon such a discriminatory law is.

Oliphant and Cavanagh continued to support their personal rejection of a same-sex couple’s civil rights with another premise, which was never part of my opinion to the Board of Governors for Higher Education in the first place. Namely, they devoted much space to arguing that same-sex couples cannot get married in Rhode Island. To date, no one has said they can.

The question posed to me was: Would Rhode Island recognize a valid same-sex marriage performed under the civil laws of Massachusetts? With the talented senior members of my staff, I researched Rhode Island law and I issued an opinion based on this law. I did not solicit the question. I did not place myself above the legislature or the judiciary but, rather, performed a constitutional duty I was elected to perform.

In their zeal, my critics state that I invented the law upon which I based my opinion, but nothing could be further from the truth. More than 100 years ago, our state Supreme Court made the same ruling. Therefore, my advisory opinion is, in part, nothing more than a simple recitation of a century-old law.

In 1904 the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled unequivocally that Rhode Island law compels recognition of a valid out-of-state marriage unless it is so “odious by the common consent of nations, or if its influence is thought dangerous to the fabric of society, so that it is strongly against the public policy” of Rhode Island.

Even my vociferous critics, who are attempting to reincarnate a discriminatory, post-Civil War law recently rejected by a Massachusetts court, must admit that Rhode Island protects same-sex couples in housing, employment, health care and adoption. These protections are in statutes, court decisions and, most recently, in the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s Rules and Regulations enacted in January 2007. In fact, our research revealed nothing in Rhode Island law or policy that allows discrimination against homosexuals in any legal area.

Our laws define public policy, and it is undisputed that there is no strong public policy against homosexuals in Rhode Island today. On the contrary, our legislature and judiciary have both acted to protect the rights of gays and lesbians and to apply civil laws to them substantially as they apply to heterosexuals. Faced with this body of law, my opinion was the only one possible.

My legal opinion does not mean that any church or any individual must recognize, accept or approve any union. It simply means that under current Rhode Island law, Rhode Island will continue to recognize lawful marriages performed in other states even if these marriages could not have been performed in Rhode Island. This is what “civil rights” means.

We are all free to accept or reject relationships and to define our own morals. We are not free, however, to deny the benefits of civil law to those whom we may not like.

Patrick C. Lynch is Rhode Island attorney general.