Today was the first day of homosexual marriage in Connecticut, in case you missed it… the press is having a field day and there are reactions aplenty. An AP report brought us down to New Haven City Hall:

Outside City Hall in New Haven, bubbles and white balloons bounced in the chilly autumn air as well-wishers cheered the marriage of Peg Oliveira and Jennifer Vickery .

Despite the roaring traffic and clicking cameras, “it was surprisingly quiet,” Oliveira said after the brief ceremony. “Everything else dissolved, and it was just the two of us. It was so much more personal and powerful in us committing to one another, and so much less about the people around us.”

According to the state public health department, 2,032 civil union licenses were issued in Connecticut between October 2005 and July 2008.

But there was no comparison between civil unions and marriage for Robin Levine-Ritterman and Barbara Levine-Ritterman, who obtained a civil union in 2005 and were among eight same-sex couples who sued for the right to marry.

“We didn’t do it with pride or joy,” Barbara Levine-Ritterman said of getting the civil-union license. “It felt gritty to be in a separate line.”

On Wednesday, however, she proudly held up the first same-sex marriage license issued in New Haven as about 100 people applauded outside City Hall. She and her betrothed, who held red roses, plan to marry in May.

“It’s thrilling today,” Barbara Levine-Ritterman said. “We are all in one line for one form. Love is love, and the state recognizes it.”

Manchester Town Clerk Joseph Camposeo, president of the Connecticut Town Clerks Association, said clerks in the state’s 169 communities were advised by e-mail shortly after 9:30 a.m. that they could start issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

The health department had new marriage applications printed that reflect the change. Instead of putting one name under “bride” and the other under “groom,” couples will see two boxes marked “bride/groom/spouse.”

Love is love! I assume that by this Ms. Levine-Ritterman means that as long as two people “love each other” they should be permitted to marry.  We have been brought to this point by the false equations and false dichotomies put forward by a movement which has taken every advantage of society’s lack of moral courage and inability to perform critical thinking.

The result will be mass confusion in our society, particularly among the young – a confusion fostered by their elders, as evidenced by the new boxes marked “bride/groom/spouse.”