The Cook County Clerk’s Office issued about 600 marriage licenses in the first week after the Religious Freedom and Marriage Equality Act took effect in Illinois, according to officials.
Office Deputy Communications Director James Scalzitti told Windy City Times that there were about 195 “new” marriage licenses issued the week of June 2-6. About 115 of those were issued in the Clerk’s downtown office. The busiest suburban office, he added, was in Skokie, which issued 33 new licenses.
There were approximately 400 conversions of civil unions to marriages in that same time frame, with 255 carried out downtown. Skokie and Rolling Meadows were the next busiest offices, according to Scalzitti.
There were approximately 2,232 marriage licenses issued to Illinois same-sex couples between February 21, when a federal judge overturned the state’s gay marriage ban, and June 6.
County Clerk David Orr, shortly after his office doors opened June 2 to let in waiting couples, said, “This is the day we have been looking forward to all along, when any couple, without regard to who they love or where they live, can get married anywhere in Illinois.”