If Howard Wax and Robert Pooley Jr. were a heterosexual couple, they could've gone to their nearest Cook County clerk's office, paid $40 for a marriage license and been wed.

That would have provided them an array of legal protections -- the right to make medical decisions for one another, the ability for one to inherit the other's property.

Instead, the couple paid $10,000 for an attorney to help them roughly simulate -- using wills, trusts and powers of attorney -- the protections that marriage affords. It was a price the men, parents of 3-year-old twins, were willing to pay for peace of mind, though they admit it's far from perfect.

"I feel at least like we're secure now," said Wax, who has been with Pooley for nine years. "It's not perfect, but we're OK." 

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