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Until this year, an outdated and overly-broad section of Rhode Island law stated that transmitting any false information over the Internet was a misdemeanor, punishable by a $500 and up to one year in jail.

On June 4th, Governor Chafee signed into law legislation raising value of a stolen object necessary for a felony charge from $500 to $1500.

Reviewing a year’s worth of data, the Rhode Island ACLU reported today that gay and lesbian couples have emphatically said “I Don’t!” to the state’s civil union law. According to statistics obtained from the RI Department of Health, a total of only 68 couples obtained civil union licenses in the first year of the law, which took effect July 1, 2011. By contrast, when civil union laws took effect earlier this year in two states with similar populations to Rhode Island, Hawaii reported the issuance of at least 106 civil union licenses, and Delaware reported more than 85, in the first month alone.

Nationwide, women face higher premiums than men for the same health insurance, leaving women disproportionately less able to purchase vital health care coverage.

While the ACLU weighed in on the expected spate of abortion bills, including bills mandating ultrasounds before abortions and codifying Roe v. Wade into state law, perhaps the most heated debate came from an innocuous bill seeking to create a licensing program for genetic counselors.