Ethics

Separation of Marriage and State

By Ed Brayton

A judge in Pennsylvania has approved a marriage that was performed by a minister who got was licensed by the Universal Life Church, reversing an earlier court ruling:

There was good news yesterday for Jason and Jennifer O'Neill, a Philadelphia couple whose 2005 Bucks County marriage had been thrown into question because they used a minister ordained online. For many other similarly situated couples, too.

Bucks County Court Judge C. Theodore Fritsch Jr. declared the marriage valid, even though the minister - Jason O'Neill's uncle, Robert A. Norman - had been ordained in a matter of minutes by the Universal Life Church after completing a short form online.

In the 2007 case that threw the O'Neills' marriage and hundreds of others into question, a York County judge declared a marriage there invalid because the online minister "did not regularly preach in a church or have an actual congregation."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on January 10, 2009 (boomark / email).