Welcome To The New World, Connecticut!

Thank you, Connecticut, thank you.

A nearly ten-year-long battle for marriage equality--not rights but equality--ended this past Wednesday when the General Assembly voted to update the state's marriage laws to conform with a landmark court ruling allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.

Yee....followed quickly by....Haw!

The bill redefines marriage in Connecticut as the legal union of two people. It also transforms civil unions into marriages as of October 1, 2010, unless they've been annulled or dissolved.

That simple. That easy.

"It feels so good. It really does feel like the book is closing," said Anne Stanback, president of Love Makes a Family, a gay-rights group that led the fight for same-sex marriage in Connecticut.

Governor M. Jodi Rell, who signed Connecticut's civil union law in 2005, yet says she believes that marriage is between a man and a women, has said she will sign the bill into law. This is a governor who has her beliefs--to which she is entitled--but somehow manages to keep them separate from state law. How refreshing!

Connecticut joins Massachusetts, Vermont and Iowa, in allowing equal rights and protection for all its citizens.

In an effort to appease some gay marriage foes, lawmakers amended the bill to show they want to protect religious liberties. For example, it says religious organizations and associations are not required to provide services, goods or facilities for same-sex wedding ceremonies.

Who cares? Your church doesn't want anything to do with gay marriage, that's your right. But when you see all those dollars slip out of the collection plate, I see a change a'comin'.

Hanging his head in defeat, Peter Wolfgang, director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, which opposes gay equality, considered the amendment "a significant improvement" because the original bill did not include any protections for religious groups such as the Knights of Columbus, which often rents out halls for weddings.

"It made a bad bill better," he said.

Oh, Peter, I beg to differ. It made a better bill easier for you to, um, swallow.

Of course, there were several cave-dwellers who aren't happy about the bill. One such woman, a Roman Catholic by the name of Carol Gignac clutched her rosary beads as she watched the debate from the Senate gallery. She said she was praying during much of the day for God's mercy on Connecticut, and that while she is resigned to the fact that gay marriage is now the law, Gignac said it bothers her that the court made that decision.

"The sad day was the state Supreme Court changing the thousands-of-years definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, across cultures, across times," said Gignac, who wore a sticker on her lapel that read: "Religious Liberty: Our Freedom First."

Carol, honey? Two things.

Number One: Marriage has been in a constant state of flux since it was first tried. One man, many wives. Wives as property. Marriage as a method to gain power. Interracial marriage. Cross-cultural marriage. Inter-faith marriage. It was and is and always will be changing.

And Number Two, Carol? You can have your outdated Roman Catholic beliefs, sweetie, but you cannot use your religious beliefs to craft legislation.

M'kay? Better now?

In another step forward out of the darkness of bigotry and homophobia, the new bill strips language from a 1991 state anti-discrimination law that says Connecticut does not condone "homosexuality or bisexuality or any equivalent lifestyle," require the teaching of homosexuality or bisexuality "as an acceptable lifestyle," set quotas for hiring gay workers or authorize recognition of same-sex marriage.

Goodbye homophobia, Hello marriage.

Thank you, Connecticut, thank you!