PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) |  02/21/2007 10:43 PM

By RAY HENRY Associated Press Writer

Rhode Island should recognize state employees’ gay marriages that are performed in neighboring Massachusetts and extend benefits to their partners, the state’s attorney general said in an opinion released Wednesday.

Rhode Island prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and also extends benefits such as health insurance to domestic partners of state employees, Attorney General Patrick Lynch noted in the opinion, requested by a state department.

He said that with the absence of a law banning gay marriage, there’s no strong reason to deny recognition to gay marriages performed in Massachusetts, the only state where such unions are legal.

Lynch said the advisory opinion, requested by the state Board of Governors for Higher Education, was not binding, and that the board or other agencies could disregard it.

”It’s essentially guidance. It’s my interpretation of the law,” he said.

Lynch’s letter, dated Tuesday and released Wednesday, was less equivocal. ”Rhode Island will recognize same sex marriages lawfully performed in Massachusetts as marriages in Rhode Island,” he wrote.

The board intends to follow Lynch’s opinion, spokesman Steve Maurano said Wednesday.

”I think his letter is very clear,” Maurano said.

The board sought the opinion when several gay employees requested that their files be changed to reflect their marriages in Massachusetts, Maurano said.

”It’s the truth,” said Wendy Becker, a professor at Rhode Island College and one of the employees who requested the change. ”We were married in Massachusetts and we wanted the status to be listed as something that is true.”

Michele Granda, a staff attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said she expected most government agencies in Rhode Island will heed the legal advice from Lynch as the state’s top lawyer.

Rhode Island is one of a few states that neither allow nor specifically bar same-sex unions. Several legislative attempts to ban or legalize gay marriage have failed there in recent years.

A Massachusetts Superior Court justice decided last fall that Rhode Islanders are allowed to marry in that state, the only place in the country where gay marriage is allowed. Rhode Island courts, however, are in no way bound by that decision.

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