Internet Ministers Defrocked

Katherine Mangu-Ward | September 12, 2007

Two people whose marriage broke up after 7 months are trying to ruin the fun of getting married by an Internet minister for the rest of us:

[The couple] wondered if the ceremony performed by a friend ordained via the Internet was even valid under state law. Now a York County [Pennsylvania] judge has ruled that it was not.

Half of the (sorta) divorced couple, Dorie Heyer, "said she agreed such a ceremony did not have legal standing. "It makes a mockery out of the whole marriage system."

For many people, this is the whole point. After all, there's no reason on God's green Earth (or Gaia's green Earth, if you prefer), that having a "regularly established church or congregation" makes you especially qualified to OK a marriage contract.

I'm taking the news rather personally, since I was hoping to be married by my sister--a proud clergywoman of the Universal Life Church--next month. There's bound to be a legal challenge to the ruling, but not soon enough to save me from the county clerk's office, I fear.

The Pennsylvania House is considering legislation that would exclude churches or congregations that offer ordinations by mail or through electronic means.

G. Martin Freeman, Universal Life Church Monastery president, said he hopes to challenge Cook's ruling.

Freeman said the decision to accept some ministers but not others was arbitrary and would violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

The New York Times recently ran a story on this conundrum as well called "Great Wedding! But Was It Legal?"

NOTA BENE: Of course, some people have bigger problems than I do getting their marriages legally recognized.