Justin Katz is a local blogger in the Ocean State, and he thinks the right way forward is something along the lines of the reciprocal benefits proposal floated earlier this week:

The relationship formed in homosexual couples is different in substantive ways from the relationship formed between heterosexual couples, most critically in the latter's ability to create children almost casually. It is not bigotry to insist that such an ability is not frivolous, and it is eminently reasonable to suggest that civic policies should maintain room for the encouragement of cultural acknowledgment of that difference. Doing so does not "create two classes," as Marriage Equality Rhode Island spokesman Bill Fischer asserts; it accurately recognizes two categories of behavior.

... intellectually, the same-sex marriage cause is not about equal rights; it's about erasing a real distinction between two different human relationships. And it's about eliminating the right of Americans to recognize that distinction.