US District Judge says gay couples don’t have to wait until June to marry

A US District Judge on Friday ruled that couples in a county of Illinois do not have to wait until June to be able to marry.

Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ruled that gay couples in Cook County, Illinois, should be allowed to marry immediately, because there has been no opposition to Illinois’ new same-sex marriage law set to take effect in June.

A terminally ill woman in Illinois was in December granted an early license to wed her partner seven months before the state’s same-sex marriage laws come into effect.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed the state’s equal marriage bill into law earlier in December, although weddings in all other counties are still only set to take place until June 1, 2014.

Illinois was the 16th US state to allow same-sex marriage.

• Nov 29 2023

56 celebrities you didn’t know are gay, bisexual or lesbian