People began lining up for marriage licenses within an hour of a judge's ruling Friday that same sex couples in Cook County do not have to wait until June to marry.
One couple even got married by Clerk David Orr, who chose not to fight a lawsuit that sought to scrap the June effective date of Illinois' same sex marriage law.
For now, the ruling by U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman applies only to Cook County. In her decision, Coleman wrote that "there is no reason to delay further when no opposition has been presented to this Court and committed gay and lesbian couples have already suffered from the denial of their fundamental right to marry."
By Friday afternoon, Theresa Volpe and Mercedes Santos were getting married in Orr's office.
Flanked by their 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son and holding rose bouquets from Orr, the couple reflected on the day for reporters. "Marriage for us is about family," said Santos, 48. "There is no right or wrong as far as who gets married."
Charlie Gurion, 25, heard about the ruling on Facebook and was at the courthouse by 12:30 p.m. with his fiancé David Wilk, 30, who left work to get their license.
"My heart is beating so fast," Wilk said. "This is amazing."
Orr said he will keep the downtown Bureau of Vital Records, in the lower level of the Daley Center, open an extra two hours tonight – until 7 p.m. – to accommodate any couples who want to get a license after work.
Only the downtown office will issue same-sex marriage licenses on Friday. All offices will begin issuing licenses on Monday, he said.
Orr said the office looks forward to long lines but he was not sure how many to expect. Extra staff will be brought in to cover the longer hours today.
Marriage licenses take effect the next calender day and are valid for 60 days. “Don’t rush to get your license if you have a summer wedding planned because you don’t want the license to expire before your big day,” Orr cautioned.
The $60 license fee will be waived for any couple who already has an Illinois civil union license. Couples who wish to convert their prior civil union date to a marriage will have to wait until June 1 because it was not addressed in Coleman’s order, Orr said.
Two women had challenged the effective date of the law in federal court last year.
The women, both in their 60s, were partners for more than five years and entered into a civil union in 2011. One of them had been battling breast cancer for 17 years and had been advised by her doctors that she had little time left to live.
They sued in U.S. District Court, requesting a marriage license immediately. U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin granted the request, citing the special circumstances. The couple wed privately in November.
Judge Coleman later ordered Orr's office to immediately begin issuing marriage licenses to other couples facing similar circumstances. "This Court can conceive of no reason why the public interest would be disserved by allowing a few couples facing terminal illness to wed a few months earlier than the timeline would currently allow," she ruled in December.
Her ruling Friday applies to all same sex couples in Cook County.
Supporters of same sex marriage praised the decision.
“We’re thrilled that Judge Coleman recognized the serious harm to the many Illinois families from continuing to deny them the freedom to marry,” said John Knight, LGBT and AIDS Project Director for the ACLU of Illinois. “The U.S. Constitution guarantees these families the personal and emotional benefits as well as the critical legal protections of marriage now, and we are thankful that the court extended this dignity to couples immediately.”
“The wait is over! We are thrilled that the court recognized the unfairness of forcing same-sex couples to wait for months to marry,” said Christopher Clark, Counsel for Lambda Legal. “Justice has prevailed and full equality is no longer delayed for Illinoisans who wish to marry in Cook County before June 1.”
Catholic Conference of Illinois officials, who opposed the law, declined to comment on the ruling.
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