A recent thread dealt with crackpot religions (the Universal Life Church was one), specifically the powers granted with respect to performing weddings, funerals and the like.
I now raise a practical question:
A couple I know wishes to get married. When I informed them that I was an ordained minister in the Church of the Subgenius (a venerable crackpot religion), they asked if I would be willing to conduct their wedding.
I told them, willing, yes. Legally empowered, though, was another matter.
I seem to remember that Texas recognized marriages conducted by ULC ministers, so I assume it’s a state by state thing. (My friends live in northern West Virginia – and for all you comedians out there, no, they’re they’re not siblings).
765.22 Immaterial irregularities as to authority of person officiating.
No marriage hereafter contracted shall be void by reason of want of authority or jurisdiction in the officiating person solemnizing such marriage, if the marriage is in other respects lawful, and is consummated with the full belief on the part of the persons so married, or either of them, that they have been lawfully joined in marriage.
The question you want to ask is not whether your ministerhood is “crackpot” or not but whether you can qualify for a license to perform weddings under state law. The best way to go about it is call up your county clerk’s office and ask them how you can go about getting the authority to perform a wedding.
While I don’t know the state statute, I believe that the “officiating” bit doesn’t matter at all. It’s the license you get down at the courthouse that matters.
For example, my first marriage took place at the courthouse, with the clerk doing a little ceremony and signing the license himself. My second (and last) took place with full church trappings. Yet both were equal in the eyes of the law.
Basically, all you’re doing is acting as a witness that these two signed the license. How it’s done doesn’t matter, whether you do it in a church, a country club or the nude.
It’s still a good idea to check in the specific state where the wedding will be held. Some states are choosier about who they’ll allow to solemnize marriages than others. Mississippi is one of those states.
If you’d been to my daughter’s wedding in Iuka a few years back you just might reconsider that last statement. We have a video of the whole thing and Carol Burnett never had a funnier skit. The minister had never done a wedding before and I’m not sure he’d ever been to one before. Of course, you might argue that Iuka isn’t part of Mississippi, since they are seemingly are in a world of their own up there.