Kevin Lembo, a Victory Fund-endorsed candidate for lieutenant governor in Connecticut, today announced he was withdrawing from that race to run for comptroller, another statewide office.  Lembo once served as Assistant Comptroller, and is currently the state’s Health Care Advocate.

The current state comptroller, Nancy Wyman, has been picked to run for lieutenant governor on a ticket with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dannel P. Malloy.  Wyman will reportedly endorse Lembo in the race to replace her in the comptroller’s office.

The Connecticut Mirror reported Lembo is well-positioned in the comptroller’s race:

He brings an immediate advantage to the late-starting race: Lembo has spent the past five months talking to potential delegates to next week’s nominating convention.

“Since December, I have spent almost every evening and weekend traveling the state and talking with voters about the need for greater efficiency and accountability in our state government – offering concrete ideas about the changes needed to make Connecticut a stronger state,” Lembo said in a message to supporters today. “With your support, I will work tirelessly with our new Governor to put us on-track to recovery and long-term prosperity.”

The state comptroller provides accounting and financial services, administers employee benefits and prepares financial reports for state, federal and municipal governments and the public.

Photo:  Wyman swears in Lembo as Connecticut’s Health Care Advocate in 2009.

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.

Transgender people may gain equal protection under Connecticut’s anti-discrimination laws if a proposal, to be introduced in the upcoming legislative session, becomes law. The proposed law would prevent workplace, housing and financial discrimination.

More than a dozen states have similar laws on the books, including California, Illinois, Maine and Massachusetts.

“We feel good,” said Jerimarie Liesegang, head of the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition told The Hartford Courant. “We’ve done the groundwork, we’ve done the education and we know we have the votes.”

The paper reports:

Connecticut has long prohibited discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation. In fact, the state was one of the first to outlaw bias against gays and lesbians.

Activists say the new proposal would extend those protections to people whose appearance doesn’t mesh with gender stereotypes, such as women who favor traditionally “masculine” clothing or hairstyles, or men who appear effeminate.Such individuals would be protected even if they don’t view themselves as transgendered.

…

“How many times do we discriminate against someone based on how they look?” Liesegang asked. “If a woman is a little more masculine, that doesn’t mean she has a right to be fired. … This isn’t about special rights, it’s about basic human rights and making people comfortable with difference.”

The measure has its critics. Kevin Witkos spoke out against the bill in 2007, while he served in the House. Witkos, a Republican from Canton, was recently elected to the Senate and continues to have reservations.

In particular, Witkos expressed concerns about the ramifications of the measure on the state’s public schools. “It impacts the learning environment,” he said. Witkos and other critics would also like to see a “restroom except” to prevent men from using a public women’s bathroom, for instance.

“There are a lot of perverse people, I see it as a policeman,” said Witkos, a Canton police sergeant. “They could use the provisions in this bill to try and go into the opposite sex’s bathroom. That would have to be addressed in the legislation or it will not get my support.”

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.’”