Western Illinois Counties Hold Off On Gay Marriage

QUINCY, Ill. - County clerks in western Illinois say they'll wait until June 1 to start issuing same-sex marriage licenses, even though two other Illinois counties have started issuing them.

The Quincy Herald-Whig reports (http://bit.ly/NHibbz ) clerks in Adams, Pike, Hancock and Brown counties say they will wait until the state's new gay marriage law takes effect, regardless of a federal judge's ruling.

Cook and Champaign counties have started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman, in a ruling that applied only to Cook County, called the state's gay marriage ban unconstitutional. That gave some legal basis for other county clerks to go ahead.

But Adams County Clerk Georgia Volm told the Quincy newspaper she would wait in order to ensure that the licenses, once issued, are valid.