Judge allows two counties to defend Illinois anti-gay marriage law

The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on May 30 against Chicago's Cook County Clerk David Orr after his office cited that 16-year-old law in refusing to marry same-sex couples or recognize out-of-state gay marriages.

They hope state courts will rule that the law is unconstitutional, paving the way for same sex marriage in Illinois.

Several states including Massachusetts and Iowa have legalized same sex marriage through the courts rather than by a vote of legislatures.

A model for Illinois could be Iowa, where in 2009 the state Supreme Court unanimously threw out a state law that limited marriage to a man and a woman. Lawyers from Lambda Legal also argued the Iowa challenge. In the 2010 election, three of the Iowa judges were voted off the bench and critics of Iowa gay marriage legalization hope to recall several more this fall.

In the Illinois case, Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, both Democrats, declined to defend the state law banning same sex marriage.

But two county clerks from more conservative parts of the state, Democrat Christie Webb of Tazewell County and Republican Kerry Hirtzel of Effingham County, asked the court to allow them to defend the state law.

The decision on Tuesday by Cook County Circuit Court Judge Sophia Hall granted a request from the two clerks to intervene in the case.

The next step in the case is a hearing on September 27 on a motion from the two clerks to dismiss the case.

"The battle is joined," said Peter Breen, the executive director of the Thomas More Society, a public interest law firm that opposes same-sex marriage and will help the two county clerks fight the lawsuit. "There will be a defense of the law which is the great news of today."

Camilla Taylor, Lambda Legal's marriage project director, said her group and the ACLU agreed to let the clerks participate in the lawsuit "because we thought it was important that no one be able to argue in the future that the other side didn't have an opportunity to present their best arguments."

(2012-07-05/chicagotribune)