Malverne same-sex couple ties the knot

Malvernites Therese Lendino and Laura Casini started the next chapter of their lives where the first began — on Queens Boulevard, near Borough Hall and the Criminal Court House. It was there that they finally tied the knot last Sunday, on the first day same-sex couples could get married in New York state.

Lendino, 54, met Casini nearly two decades ago near the courthouse. She was a prosecutor for the Queens district attorney’s office and Casini, 46, was a legal aid attorney.

“I was in the courthouse every day doing hearings and trials and she was in the courthouse every day doing hearings and trials … and we became friends,” Casini said. “Then we started dating.” And now, 18 years later, they’re married.

“I never thought I’d see this day,” said Lendino, who is now the chief of the Grand Jury Bureau. “I’ll be 55 this year and I really, honestly never thought I would see this day happen. That’s why we [were] both so anxious to do this on the first day possible, because we’ve been together for 18 years and I guess we just want to make a statement. At the first available opportunity we had to do this, we did it.”

Along with some 20 friends and relatives, the couple’s 11-year-old adopted daughter, Gianna, joined them behind Borough Hall on July 24 for the quick and simple ceremony that they had awaited for so long. They decided against a big ceremony. “I don’t need a new cappuccino maker,” Casini said. “I need recognition and respect.”

Same-sex couples received both recognition and respect from the state shortly before midnight on June 24, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law legislation permitting same-sex marriage — legislation that had passed with a 33-29 vote in the Senate and made New York the sixth state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage.

“When we were one vote away,” Casini said, “I read the newspaper in the morning and I said, ‘Honey, I think we’re one vote away,’ and she turned around and said, ‘Well, will you marry me?’ I started crying and said ‘Of course.’”

Casini and Lendino’s decision to tie the knot was about more than finally having the right to get married. “It’s about society respecting our relationship,” Lendino said. “Marriage has always sort of been the ultimate be-all and end-all when it comes to legitimizing a relationship.”

Although she is happy to be married and for the state to have reached this point, Casini, who is now a criminal defense lawyer, is disappointed in Long Island’s nine senators, all Republicans who voted against the bill. “I think it’s disgusting,” she said. “It all comes down to what side of history do you want to stand on? And the truth of the matter is, their grandchildren will be ashamed of their vote.”

Cuomo, on the other hand, will be heralded as a “frontiersman,” she added.

Citing impatience as a vice of hers, Casini said she wants widespread acceptance as soon as possible. “I would like it all to be federally recognized now and I’m outraged that it’s not,” she said. “But it’s baby steps, and I’m very proud of New York, and I think Andrew Cuomo is awesome.”