URBANA, Ill.– Champaign County officials said the central Illinois county will begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses Wednesday, making it the second county to do so after a federal judge ruled Cook County gay couples did not have to wait until the state’s new gay marriage law takes effect this summer.
The ruling last week stemmed from a lawsuit against Cook County Clerk David Orr and applied only to Cook County, which includes Chicago. However, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman also said the state’s gay marriage ban is unconstitutional, which legal experts said other counties could use as a reason to issue marriage licenses right away.
Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten said he decided to issue the licenses after consulting with county attorneys. Champaign County is one of the state’s more populated counties and home to Urbana.
“If the state statute is unconstitutional in Cook County, it’s unconstitutional in Champaign County,” Hulten said, adding that he wanted to spare taxpayers the expense of a potential legal challenge.
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At least one couple had showed up to the office Wednesday for a license, he said.
Advocates celebrated the move.
“It is simply time for the other county clerks to follow suit,” Bernard Cherkasov, CEO of Equality Illinois, said in a statement. ” … Gay and lesbian couples are eager and ready to take the step that not only grants them and their family the legal benefits and rights of marriage but also bestows society’s recognition that their love is equal.”
However, officials in a number of other counties have said they’ll wait until June 1.
More than half a dozen counties in central Illinois — Sangamon, Logan, Cass, Morgan, Macoupin, Montgomery and Christian — said they’d comply with the new law as written, reported the (Springfield) State Journal-Register.
“We’re just going to follow the law,” Sangamon County Clerk Joe Aiello told the newspaper.
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But the state’s top leaders, including Gov. Pat Quinn, who signed the same-sex marriage legislation late last year, said they hoped more counties follow suit.
Illinois’ first same-sex couple to wed — Vernita Gray and her partner of five years, Patricia Ewert — did so in late November. An expedited license was granted because Gray was terminally ill with cancer. Several other gay couples have been able to wed early for the same reason, both with expedited licenses and an earlier ruling from Coleman in December.
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