You can't perform a legally binding marriage with an online fake ordination: So what else is new?

Yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer (see the continuation of this post, courtesy of the Smart Marriages listserv) has one of those stories that family lawyers notice so often in the media, that takes something that has been going on for decades in the courts and labels it an alarming new trend. This time it's that states don't recognize marriages performed by people with mail-order fake ordinations as clergy. That has always been the rule, but now many of them are online ordinations instead of mail-order ones, and supposedly that's somehow different.

This is an area where the line between church and state is very narrow and twisty, but it has been in place for 30 or 40 years and has been very stable. It has been articulated in case law and is laid out in statutes whose wording varies between states, but basically, if something that looks and acts like a religion, with enough people exclusively involved in it even to have a wedding, names you some kind of leader and authorizes you to perform marriages, then the state authorizes it, too, automatically.

Some states, like my own, let people apply for one-time authorization to perform the marriage of friends or relatives. Both my father and I have had the great honor and responsibility of doing this, with court orders in hand. Conversely, even the great pastor and musician Andrae Crouch once caused a legal snafu here in my hometown of Arlington, Va. because he is an out-of-state clergyman and he didn't get a court order before marrying four couples at a shopping mall.

Marriages by ministers ordained online in question
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Dianna Marder
Oct 8, 2007

After less than a year of marriage, 21-year-old Dorie Heyer of York County,
Pa., wanted out.

But Heyer’s lawyer did not file for divorce.

Instead, she asked the court to invalidate Heyer’s marriage on grounds that
the person who officiated — Adam Johnston, a friend of the couple’s who had
been ordained online just so he could perform the Aug. 24, 2006, ceremony —
was unqualified.

The judge agreed that Johnston did not have “a regularly established church
or congregation,” as the law requires. Therefore, he was unauthorized and
the marriage invalid.

It was the first time that legal argument had been made in Pennsylvania.

And although the judge’s Sept. 7 ruling isn’t binding for other counties, it
does have serious implications for thousands in Pennsylvania.

Anyone married since 2005 (when the state stopped recognizing common-law
marriage) by someone who might not have a “regularly established church or
congregation” should seek counsel, recommends David Cleaver, solicitor for
the statewide Association of Registers of Wills and Clerks of Orphans Court
— the people who issue marriage licenses.

Couples could find their marriages invalidated and their children
bastardized. Government benefits such as Social Security and disability
payments could be challenged. Insurance companies could demand repayment of
benefits paid for the hospitalization of the insured’s spouse. Heirs could
find themselves with no legal standing in probate court.

And, Cleaver said, the clerks in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties should no longer
accept any marriage certificate signed by an officiant with potentially
questionable qualifications.

The Sept. 7 ruling by York County Court Judge Maria Musti Cook falls at the
intersection of two trends.

First, more couples than ever want friends or family members to officiate at
their weddings, said Millie Martini Bratton, editor-in-chief of Bride’s
magazine. They may be an older couple, or one marrying for a second time.
Some are interfaith couples, and others plan destination weddings with
ceremonies in exotic resorts.

And at the same time, there is growing discontent among those who think that
online ordinations make a mockery of marriage.

“The problem with Internet ordinations,” Cleaver says, “is that you don’t
know who you are ordaining. You open the door for convicted pedophiles,
rapists, even your garbage collector, to officiate at weddings.”

Cleaver called the York County ruling “appeal-proof,” and without waiting to
see whether the case would be overturned or affirmed on appeal, he issued an
alarm.

The sound reverberated in Bucks County, where Register of Wills Barbara G.
Reilly held a news conference, urging couples who might be affected to
remarry as soon as possible.

The result? At least 45 couples applied for new marriage licenses. Among
them were three pregnant women.

One of the women was scheduled to undergo induced labor for the birth of her
first child. She was in a panic, Reilly said.

“So we brought it to a judge who agreed to waive the required three-day
waiting period and conduct a new wedding ceremony himself that day — on the
spot,” said Reilly.

Among the others who sought to remarry were Frederick Merk and Vickie Yuksel
of Levittown, who returned from their Florida honeymoon just in time for
Reilly’s news conference.

Merk, 49, and Yuksel, 51, had been married July 29 in a ceremony near his
sister’s backyard pool. The theme was Hawaiian. Guests wore flowered shirts
and flip flops. And the officiant was Merk’s stepfather, Carroll Robertson,
who got ordained online for the occasion.

“He raised me from the time I was 8 years old and treated me like his own
child,” Merk said.

On Reilly’s advice, the couple immediately applied for a new license, and
within four working days they were married again — this time by a judge.

“It was kind of funny to me,” Merk said. “Kind of a joke. Why does somebody
care who married me?”

Reilly said she knew the day was coming. She put a disclaimer on her office
Web site several years ago, warning couples that online ordinations could be
questioned by the court.

Now Reilly has taken the ruling one step further. She is asking clergy
members who are not priests or rabbis to sign an affidavit attesting that
they are qualified to solemnize Pennsylvania wedding ceremonies.

Marguerite Sexton, who lives in Montgomery County and founded the
nondenominational Journeys of the Heart in 1996, is among those asked to
sign.

Journeys, which has about a half-dozen officiants who conduct hundreds of
ceremonies a year, is a ministry in every sense of the word, Sexton says, a
spiritual home for people who may not feel welcome elsewhere. It is legally
incorporated as a religious organization, trains its officiants, and does
not offer online ordination.

But last week, Sexton says, a bride who was eight days from her wedding day
went into Reilly’s office for a license “and she said they grilled her.”

“We want to comply with Bucks County,” Sexton said. “But I wonder why the
state is in the business of defining what makes a congregation?”

Edie Moser also agreed to sign an affidavit.

A master’s level social worker, Moser studied at a New York seminary —
taking classes in person — and was ordained in 1999.

Her organization, By Devine Design, is legally incorporated as a
not-for-profit and she has officiated at numerous weddings, baby blessings
and memorial services.

But now, she says, she’s getting calls from concerned couples. “I tell them
the truth: that I am legally permitted to marry people,” said Moser.

Whether they use the title chaplain or pastor or no title at all, Moser
said, there are many people who minister to the needs of others in hospices
or prisons, for example, but do not have traditional congregations.

Meanwhile, Evan Goldman, a Philadelphia University professor whose June 10,
2000, wedding ceremony in Delaware County was also conducted by a friend
ordained online for the occasion, is not worried about the legal status of
his marriage.

He’s worried about the state’s intervention.

“Why should the state give credence to one minister over another just
because he has a ‘regularly established church?’ Jim Jones had a ‘regularly
established church’ and he fed his congregants a poison cocktail. And what
about people who minister to the homeless?”

Goldman and his wife, Amoi Dort, have a son, Weaver, who is 26 months old.

“Will the state seek to label him illegitimate?” Goldman asked.

The York County case and Cook’s subsequent ruling were not unanticipated.

Questions about the legality of online ordinations, Cleaver says, “have been
festering for some time.”

And while Cook’s ruling appears to violate the First Amendment by putting
the state in the position of determining what is a church and a
congregation, Cleaver says Cook’s reasoning is squarely within the Tenth
Amendment, addressing states’ right.

Marriage laws vary in each state. Some even allow notary publics to
officiate at weddings, while others have tried to outlaw online ministers.

Should the Cook decision not stand, State Representative Stan Saylor
(R.,York) has a bill that would bar anyone ordained online or through the
mail from officiating at weddings - even if they have established
congregations.

Saylor’s objective, says legislative aide Mark Zerbe, is to “protect the
sanctity of marriage.”

But a religious ceremony is not the only option for Pennsylvania couples.

Judges, district justices, U.S. District Court judges and magistrates,
federal appeals court judges, and mayors may sign marriage certificates.

In addition, couples may have “self-uniting” ceremonies at which two
witnesses take the place of a clergy member.

But some interpret the “self-uniting” provision narrowly, saying it was
established for faiths that do not use ministers, such as Quakers, Baha’i,
and the Amish, so at least one member of the couple must belong to one of
those faiths.

So in Bucks County, an individual who asks for a self-uniting license is
asked about his or her religion. And that, says Witold Walczak, legal
director of the ACLU in Pennsylvania, is a violation of the U.S.
Constitution.

In fact, the ACLU recently intervened in the case of a Pittsburgh couple
refused a self-uniting license in Allegheny County - and won.

Reilly said she is aware of the federal ruling but will continue to put
limits on who can get a self-uniting licenses because she suspects that it
will be overturned.

“Besides,” she said, “My office received complaints from the Quaker
membership who felt that people were getting married claiming to be Quakers
when in fact they were not,” she said.

Finally, in Philadelphia, where Ronald R. Donatucci is the register of
wills, nothing is changing as a result of Cook’s ruling.

“We believe that it is questionable as to whether or not that ruling
establishes a precedent for the entire state,” said Caren Martin,
Donatucci’s deputy for litigation.

And in Philadelphia, Martin says, self-uniting licenses are issued to those
who seek them.

“We don’t ask them their religion,” she said.

Comments

[Tami E.]

"You open the door for convicted pedophiles,
rapists, even your garbage collector, to officiate at weddings.”

Is Cleaver comparing sanitation workers to pediphiles and rapists?

[Clyde Hooks]

Sorry to be so late commenting... I realize this took place a long time ago but what makes you think online ordination is fake? There are organizations who genuinely examine each applicant prayerfully and require statements of faith. They also will revoke the ordination should the person fall from faith. These are legal in all states.
Our first amendment provide that there should be NO laws enacted that would abrogate the free exercise of religion... online or off!