RI Gay Marriage

I was reading an article in the Bay Windows today, which is a news site for LGBT folks in New England, and came across this article about how RI is considering gay marriage but with possibly a broad religious exemption clause. I am supportive of separation of religion and state, and I don't think religious institutions should be forced to marry same sex couples, but allowing religious institutions to deny benefits to employees in a same-sex relationships or to allow religious hospitals to deny a spouse in a same-sex relationship from being involved in the health care decisions of their spouse who is a patient there is ridiculous. What about same-sex couples who have a child in a religious school, can the school deny that one of the parents is a parent to the child and not allow them to sign off on papers, etc.? I don't see allowing same-sex marriage to be a threat to religious institutions as long as they don't have to actually marry these couples.

I don't understand how extending benefits the spouse of an employee in a same-sex relationship infringes upon their religious liberties. Giving them the benefits like they would for couples in a different-sex relationship doesn't condone their relationship.  There's some religions who are opposed to couples who are married to someone outside of the religion, so should these institutions be allowed to deny benefits to a spouse who is Muslim when the employee is Jewish and works for a Jewish institution? We need to have a nice balance between allowing religions to keep their religious freedoms with preventing them from engaging in outright discrimination.

Anyways, people like Rabbi Barry Dollinger gives me hope that maybe this will go through without the over broad religious exemption:

At least one religious leader in Rhode Island said he's comfortable supporting the gay marriage legislation because the exemption makes it clear that his synagogue remains the authority on who in the Jewish faith is eligible to marry. Rabbi Barry Dolinger of Congregation Beth Sholom in Providence said he believes that while civil law should allow gays and lesbians to marry, it must remain up to religious bodies to determine who can marry within their faith. Dolinger is also an attorney.

"Never say never, but I will never perform a gay marriage as an orthodox rabbi because it's prohibited by our main religious text," he said. "But as a person of faith, it's deeply important to me that the government stays far away from what we do. I'm all for letting people have it, and I think the government should stay out of preventing it, but we can't compel people to violate their religious beliefs.''