R.I. Gives Up on Marriage in 2011

Hopes were dashed in Rhode Island when the state's gay house speaker, Democrat Gordon Fox (pictured), said a marriage equality bill had no hope of passing this year.

Fox says blame can be placed on the Ocean State's senate, where opposition was too strong to overcome. Resistance to gay marriage from senate president Teresa Paiva Weed, a Democrat, sealed the fate of a much-discussed marriage equality bill. Weed supports civil unions, which she told the Associated Press she was confident would pass in Rhode Island's legislature.

Rhode Island is one of two states in New England without same-sex marriage. Voters in Maine reversed marriage equality in 2009.

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