Cook County to Start Issuing Marriage Licenses to Same Sex Couples
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman has issued a ruling stating that Cook County is to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples ahead of June 1, when SB10, the Illinois law legalizing same-sex marriage is scheduled to go into effect.
Coleman stated in a report 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.”
Cook County Clerk David Orr, a supporter of the measure, has stated he will begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses immediately.
The ruling follows an earlier one also made by Coleman, authorizing the issuance of licenses to same-sex couples if one or both members had a terminal illness, in response to the case of Patricia Ewert and Vernita Gray, who successfully filed for a marriage license after Gray, a breast cancer sufferer, was told she only had a few weeks to live.
Coleman stated in a report 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.”
Cook County Clerk David Orr, a supporter of the measure, has stated he will begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses immediately.
The ruling follows an earlier one also made by Coleman, authorizing the issuance of licenses to same-sex couples if one or both members had a terminal illness, in response to the case of Patricia Ewert and Vernita Gray, who successfully filed for a marriage license after Gray, a breast cancer sufferer, was told she only had a few weeks to live.
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