Politics & Government

Chafee signs civil union bill with reservations

Despite exemption that "eviscerates" "important rights", governor OKs law.

Governor Lincoln Chafee signed H 6103, "An Act Related to Domestic Relations – Civil Unions” into law this morning, even though he said it fails to provide equal rights to all citizens.

The governor wrote in his signing statement that the measure is a step forward and brings "tangible rights" to thousands of Rhode Islanders.

But Chafee also wrote that although the law permits officials to certify people in civil unions, it also "provides a religious exemption of unparalleled and alarming scope."

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The exemption in question is under § 15-3.1-5(a)(3) of the law: "No religious organization or its employees may be required “to treat as valid any civil union.” 

That exemption, "gives these institutions and their employees the choice of refusing to recognize civil unions. As a result, a party to a civil union could be denied the right to make medical decisions for his or her partner, denied access to health insurance benefits, denied property rights in adjoining burial plots or denied family memberships at religiously-affiliated community centers. If religiously-affiliated hospitals, cemeteries, schools and community centers refuse to treat civil unions as valid, it would significantly harm civil union partners by failing to protect their medical, physical and commercial interests at critical moments in their lives," Chafee wrote, "This extraordinary exemption eviscerates the important rights that enacting a civil union law was meant to guarantee for same sex couples in the first place.""I am signing this bill because I believe that same sex couples should have the same legal rights, benefits, protections and responsibilities as heterosexual couples. Although this measure is a step forward, it fails to fully achieve those goals in its present form," Chafee wrote.

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