On July 2, 2011, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee signed into law H6103, which legalized same-sex unions in the state. The bill, modeled on bills already passed in Illinois, Delaware and Hawaii, defines a civil union as a "legal union between two individuals of the same sex" who are consenting and not already married. The passage of H6103 followed the Minnesota Senate's approval of a voter referendum to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage in May 2011.

Learn more about Rhode Island from the JURIST news archive, and read an overview of Same-Sex Marriage in Features.