Pressing their cases: Supporters of abortion-rights bill, gun-control bills to speak out on Smith Hill

March 27-- Mar. 27--PROVIDENCE -- Religious leaders and advocates from outside the Catholic Church are headed to Smith Hill on Wednesday to demonstrate support for the stalled abortion-rights bill, and specifically make the point that Rhode Island is not a one-religion state.

In the second of back-to-back press conferences, Governor Raimondo, Attorney General Peter Neronha and Central Falls Mayor James Diossa are scheduled to join advocates for a package of gun-control bills that do not appear to be moving, despite a significant level of support in the Senate, especially an assault weapons ban, a limit on high-capacity magazines and a school-grounds gun ban.

One of the Senate bills headed for a likely hearing next week -- the proposed assault weapons ban -- is co-sponsored by 22 of the 38 senators. The bill applies to semi-automatic firearms capable of firing off multiple rounds.

A second bill -- the proposed 10-round limit on high-capacity magazines -- has 21 Senate co-sponsors . (The proposed ban on guns in school zones has 10 co-sponsors.)

While support is high in the Senate, House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello -- with an A-rating from the NRA -- has not demonstrated any willingness to let the House vote on any of the bills in the gun-control package supported by the governor, Col. James Manni, the new head of the Rhode Island State Police or the majority in the Senate.

In an interview on WPRO-radio Wednesday morning, Mattiello also confirmed his opposition to Raimondo's bid in her proposed budget to levy a new 10 percent surcharge on guns and ammunition. He said he would find it difficult to place surcharges on constitutional rights such as the First Amendment (lobbying) and the Second Amendment. (Context: Raimondo is also seeking to tax lobbying services.)

The hours-long House Judiciary hearing on gun legislation in mid-March included a personal plea from Rhode Islander Erica Keuter of East Greenwich, who survived the massacre by a gunman that left 58 concert-goers dead and hundreds more injured in Las Vegas in October 2017.

"I heard screaming and crying, smelled gun powder and saw the carnage that one person can do with these firearms, all of which were legally owned," she told the lawmakers. "If you take one thing away from my experience, it's that gun violence can happen anywhere, anytime, to anyone."

(Keuter is listed as one of the anticipated speakers at Wednesday press conference at the State House.)

But the majority on the House committee did not appear sympathetic to passage of any new gun laws, including Rep. Dennis Canario, a retired Portsmouth police officer, who asked repeatedly: why take guns away from law-abiding gun owners?

In the 75-member House, the gun-control measure with the largest number of co-sponsors is the proposed school grounds gun ban with 24. The assault-weapons ban has 20 co-sponsors and the proposed limit on magazines, 17.

At a second press conference on Wednesday, advocates resume their fight for Senate action on a House-passed bill to keep abortion legal in Rhode Island regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court might do in the Trump era to the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

With 17 co-sponsors of the matching abortion-rights bill that Sen. Gayle Goldin of Providence introduced, the potential Senate vote is much closer than it was in the House where the legislation passed 44 to 30.

The announced speakers list for Wednesday's press conference includes: the Rev. Eugene Dyszlewski, co-chair, Rhode Island Religious Coalition for Reproductive Freedom; Rabbi Barry Dolinger, Congregation Beth Sholom and the Rev. Jennifer Geary, serving with the Rhode Island Conference of the United Church of Christ. Others on the list include Camille Brousseau and Sabrina Goncalves, Temple Habonim youth and high school students; Jeffery Sathyadev Branch, Karma Yogi (Hindu) and Glenn Northern, Catholics for Choice.

In his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year, Rabbi Dolinger told the lawmakers that in his Orthodox Jewish tradition, abortions are discouraged, but "allowed? by many rabbis to protect the "mental health, emotional or financial health of a parent, depending on the circumstances.?

He warned them against passing laws "that are primarily based on a non-Jewish religion? at the expense of "our free exercise of religion."

"To use the state legislature as an arm of the church is a fundamental violation of the separation of church and state,? the rabbi said. "It concerns many, many Jews and it concerns all kinds of other people who do not represent the majority religion in Rhode Island."

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