Gay Marriage Okayed for Terminally Ill

The Illinois law that allows same-sex marriage will take effect in June 2014, but gay couples who want to wed immediately because one partner is terminally ill can do so starting on Monday.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman issued a final order yesterday in a hearing in Chicago that created this medical exception statewide.
The case pending before Judge Coleman was a class-action lawsuit brought by plaintiffs who are gay couples from Cook County in which one of the partners has a life-threatening illness. Judge Coleman wrote in her opinion, “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.”
Issuance of a marriage license is dependent on the completion of a physician’s certification form, stating that there is a reason to expect that one or both partners may not live to June 1, 2014, when marriage equality is set to take effect in Illinois. The form can be downloaded on the marriage of equality page of the clerk’s website.
To date, three same-sex couples from Illinois have been granted emergency marriage licenses due to serious illness.