These couples stand united

It’s life as usual for those same-sex couples that tied the knot last month. The only difference: there’s a piece of paper that says their unions are official.
“We didn’t think that anything would change – because nothing did change,” said Greg Levine, who was the first to marry his husband, Shane Serkiz, at Queens Borough Hall last month when the state legalized same-sex marriage.
For many couples that were first to make their partnerships legal in New York State – their marriages are a label that crystallized commitments they made years ago to each other.
“I have been introducing Laura as my wife for more years than I can remember,” said Therese Lendino. “But now I can say it and it is really, really true.”
Lendino, a defense attorney for the city, married her partner of 18 years, Laura Casini, outside the lawns of Queens Borough Hall in an outdoor ceremony that first day. The couple lives in Malverne, Long Island, but are originally from Queens.
The lawyer couple met while defending clients at the courthouse and have been together ever since. This week, they decided to escape to the Catskills for some time together.
Levine and Serkiz, who have been together for 12 years, had just gotten back from an eight-day trip to St. John’s, Newfoundland in Canada.
“We have felt like a happy couple who is planning to spend the rest of their lives together,” Levine said.
The newlyweds said they drove around the Maritime Provinces, but hadn’t planned to take the trip because they got married. It was something they had talked about doing for years, Levine said.
He and his husband, Shane, plan to have a wedding ceremony later on this year and have already started planning for the occasion.
Since the couples have been together for so long, their day-to-day lives haven’t changed much from before July 24, when they said “I do” before a throng of photographers and journalists documenting their historic rite of passage into married life.
Their lives haven’t changed nor have their unions altered society’s decorum, the couples noted. For those that objected to the notion of their unions – it has been three weeks and things have been relatively quiet thus far.
“Nothing has fallen apart and the fabric of society hasn’t started to unravel,” Lendino said. “I think we’re going to be pretty safe.”