At 12:01 AM Eastern Standard Time, Bob Sullivan and Bill Slimback became the first same-sex couple to exchange their vows as gay marriage became legal in Vermont.

Dressed in suits, saying their vows under a large wall-mounted moose head, the two Whitehall, N.Y., men promised their love, exchanged rings and held hands during a modest 17-minute ceremony. Moose Meadow Lodge co-owner Greg Trulson, who’s also a Justice of the Peace, presided.

“It feels wonderful,” said Slimback, 38, an out-of-work Teamster who is taking Sullivan’s last name as his own. “It’s a day I’ve been long waiting for, and a day I truly honestly thought would never come.”

Slimback said he and Sullivan, 41, have long wanted to cement their relationship with a wedding, but since they couldn’t legally marry in New York they chose to wed even before Vermont’s gay marriage era officially dawned.

Vermont is one of five states that now allow same-sex couples to marry. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa are the others. New Hampshire’s law takes effect Jan. 1, 2010.

Vermont, which invented civil unions in 2000 after a same-sex couple challenged the inequality of state marriage statutes, was a mecca for gay couples who to that point had no way to officially recognize their relationships.

Since then, other states have allowed gay marriage, as did Vermont, which in April became the first state to legalize gay marriage through a legislative decree and not a court case.

Coverage from the local Fox affiliate below:

Just when you think the world can’t get any smaller. Remember Chris? He was the fella outside an Obama townhall last week in Phoenix with a semi-automatic rifle strapped to his back as a part of staged act to demonstrate his right to bear arms. Guess where this guy goes to church? Yes that’s right. Pastor Steven L. Anderson’s Faithful Word Baptist church in nearby Tempe Arizona. Pastor Anderson’s been getting a lot of press lately for preaching death to Obama and homosexuals. Fancy that. Watch the video below demonstrating the linkage between these two men…

Thanks to an intrepid sleuther at Crooks & Liars for discovering the linkage.

In what many will consider the end of a dynasty, the last of three brothers, Senator Edward Kennedy, brother to President John. F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy, both gunned down early in life, has passed away from brain cancer at the age of 72.

“Edward M. Kennedy, the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply, died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port (Massachusetts),” the Kennedy family said in a statement.

One of the most influential and longest-serving senators in U.S. history — a liberal standard-bearer who was also known as a consummate congressional dealmaker — Kennedy had been battling brain cancer, which was diagnosed in May 2008.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the family statement added.

From CNN…

In the clip below, Teddy Kennedy gives a moving eulogy for his brother Robert. If there is a hearafter, I hope he is now at peace, and is rejoined with those he had lost. RIP Teddy…

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) of course was referring to his own supporters as he defended statements made last week at a townhall meeting where he accused an out-of-state LaRouche supporter of being like a dining room table. But only after the townhall crasher had attempted to draw parallels between Obama and Hitler. Watch:

Don’t worry Barney. No one would ever confuse your lovable curmudgeon self with Mr. Belvedere or Alfred Pennyworth or Giles French. Yes I know they weren’t on PBS but you get the idea. Just stay as you are Barney, stay as you are.

And for some context… the original exchange between Rep. Frank and “woman from another planet.”