Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee
said he will sign a gay marriage bill into law possibly as early as
this week.
The measure cleared the Senate on
Wednesday with the help of all 5 of its Republican members. It
returns to a House committee this week to reconcile some language
differences between a version approved three months earlier in the
House.
Speaking to Bloomberg
News, Chafee, a 60-year-old independent, said the “time had
come” for marriage equality in Rhode Island.
“There were no deals, no trades,”
Chafee said of passage in the Senate, where Democratic Senate
President Teresa Paiva Weed remains an opponent.
Chafee had argued that Rhode Island was
falling behind economically as the only New England state without
marriage equality.
“Some people think that means
florists and weddings, and in fact I don't mean that at all,”
Chafee said. “I mean it in a broader universe of a place that is
welcoming to the younger generation, the creative generation,
entrepreneurs.”
(Related: NOM
labeled “ineffective” at halting gay marriage in Rhode Island.)