E-Mail This Article to a Friend WEDDING PLANNERS Prenuptial blood rush BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

With less than two weeks to go before the landmark state Supreme Judicial Court ruling legalizing gay marriage takes effect and cities and towns across Massachusetts begin accepting marriage-license applications from same-sex couples, municipal clerks aren’t the only ones bracing for an onslaught. Medical providers anticipate such demand for gay-marriage licenses that they’re offering special premarital blood tests exclusively for same-sex couples.

The Boston-based Fenway Community Health Center launched its "premarital blood-work program" for gay and lesbian couples on April 20, a full 30 days before couples could marry. The center, a fixture in the gay community, has set aside special sessions for blood testing four days a week. Even before the program opened, as many as 175 couples had booked appointments, according to Fenway spokesperson Angela Wilcox. Since then, employees have fielded several calls each day from couples seeking to tie the knot.

"With all the activity going on around gay marriage," Wilcox says, "we want to be there for the community. A lot of people want to get married."

Across the river, the Cambridge Public Health Department has organized its own testing sessions for gay and lesbian couples. Over the next three weeks, the city’s public-health nurses will perform premarital blood tests on Wednesday and Thursday evenings exclusively for same-sex couples who are eager to get hitched. By last Monday afternoon, according to Ricki Lacy, the department’s director of public-health nursing, the city had already lined up 10 couples for blood-work appointments. Says Lacy, "We’re very excited about the ruling, and we felt like anything we could do to help move the process along would be wonderful."

Under state law, anyone applying for a marriage license must undergo a blood test for evidence of syphilis no more than 30 days before filling out a marriage-license application. (State law also requires medical providers to offer voluntary tests for rubella, or "German measles," to all women of childbearing age.) Nationally, premarital blood tests have fallen largely by the wayside. Most states have dropped the requirement altogether, since the tests are not an effective way to curb the spread of syphilis. Massachusetts is one of six states that continues to mandate blood testing for all prospective newlyweds.

At the Fenway and Cambridge clinics, gay and lesbian couples will be charged $50 per couple or $25 per individual — in other words, the cost of processing the tests. That makes the special clinics a cheaper way to satisfy the blood-work requirement than via a trip to the doctor’s office, Wilcox says. Appointments take approximately 15 minutes, while test results and a doctor-approved certificate take about three days to process.

So for all those eager to head down to the city clerk’s office on May 17, it’s best to make an appointment today. Says Lacy, "We’re ready and excited to be a part of this historic day."

The Cambridge Public Health Department has scheduled special blood-work clinics for gay and lesbian couples from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. every Wednesday and Thursday, from May 5 to May 20. Fenway Community Health Center offers its premarital blood-work program on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and on Saturdays for the immediate future, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.