Connecticut state legislators in the House and Senate Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to approve marriage equality for same-sex couples, reaffirming a decision of the state’s supreme court that required the state to do so.  State Senator Andrew Macdonald, who is openly gay, told the Associated Press, “We wanted to make it completely clear that the state of Connecticut fully embraces not only the rights of same-sex couples to marry, but we fully embrace the rights and protections afforded by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and the Connecticut Constitution to the free exercise of religion.”

State Rep. Beth Bye (pictured), who married her partner the minute it became legal in the state, received hugs of congratulations from her colleagues after the vote.  ”I’m grateful that this bill provides the respect and dignity that all marriages in Connecticut deserve,” Bye said.

This morning, recently re-elected Connecticut state Rep. Beth Bye and her partner Tracey Wilson hovered over a computer in the West Hartford Town Hall waiting for an e-mail announcing that they could legally marry.

At 9:30 a.m. all of the state’s town clerks simultaneously received the notification that same-sex couples could marry in the state. Fellow state legislator Sen. Jonathan Harris officiated the ten-minute ceremony, joined by Bye’s sister, Wilson’s brother and three of their four children.

Bye says the marriage announcement will appear in the New York Times. Bye knows that she and Wilson were the first gay couple to marry in West Hartford, but she’s unsure of whether they were the first in the state.

“Saying the vows again was really beautiful and still moving,” she said. “It sort of it hit me harder than I thought it would.  It really was moving – to have this idea that we’re not separate.  We’re not a separate class, we’re the same like everyone else.”

Bye and Wilson already conducted a religious wedding three years ago, inviting more than 150 people. However, Bye says there are multiple pragmatic benefits about gaining a civil marriage.

She says, “I just posted on my Facebook that ‘Beth Bye is married.’ Four hours ago I couldn’t say that.  When I go to the doctor’s, I don’t have to check ‘other’ when asked about my marital status.”

Furthermore, now that Bye and Wilson are married, there is no question over whether Bye will be entitled to Wilson’s teaching pension (she will now be listed as a spouse instead of a “beneficiary,” which is important because, as Bye says, “the benefits are very different”).

Looking to how the Connecticut marriages will affect the marriage equality movement in other states, Bye says that as more states that pass legislation in support of same-sex relationships and the more people that live openly, the more people will realize that marriage equality poses no threat.

After Bye and Wilson’s wedding, she says, Wilson and the kids went back to school and Bye went back to work.

“We’re just living our lives. There’s really no hazard in this,” she said.

Recently re-elected Connecticut state Rep. Beth Bye and her partner Tracey Wilson plan to make history today by becoming the first gay couple to marry in the town of West Hartford.

The Associated Press reports:

For Wilson, it’s not just a personal milestone, but a professional one as well. She’s the town’s historian.

“She’d love to be the first one in town,” joked Bye, who spent hours as a lawmaker listening to testimony on the marriage issue in 2007. She was a member of the Judiciary Committee which approved a bill that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed.

In 2005, Bye and Wilson had a big “wedding” ceremony at their church, before more than 150 guests, when they got a civil union. On Wednesday, they plan to show up at town hall with their kids, dressed in street clothes, and have a friend who is a local state senator and justice of the peace make it all official.

“I think for us, we really were married three years ago in our church,” Bye said. “But it feels different that our state is saying, ‘now you’re married. You have the same rights as everyone else.’”