Can I Get In Twouble For Performing A Wedding Without A Wicense?

Matt Arnold

July 3, 2009

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On Ask Metafilter, I pose the question: Can a a divorced atheist permanent-bachelor who dislikes the institution of marriage and is bored at weddings run afoul of the law for marrying people who are already married? Read my story on Metafilter, which includes the phrase "the barest superficial veneer of religiosity".

Comments

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rikhei on Jul. 4, 2009 2:56 AM

I guess my question is - who would you get in trouble with?

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matt-arnold on Jul. 4, 2009 3:35 AM

The law! Why would officiants purchase ordination from the Universal Life Church if the law didn't require it? I don't want to be arrested. By the police.

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matt-arnold on Jul. 4, 2009 5:46 AM

I would like to add that in this day and age, in which our state has changed its Constitution to defend civilization from the threat of married gay people, I am amused at how plausible the concept of Marriage Crime seems to me. Kind of like thought crime, but with weddings.

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amanda_lodden on Jul. 4, 2009 1:42 PM

Officiants purchase ordination from the Universal Life Church to be able to sign all the paperwork, too.

It's perfectly possible to have a wedding ceremony in which the couple does not end up married afterward (I have friends who have done this). That is pretty much exactly what you're doing, except that because of the Justice of the Peace involved beforehand, they do end up married at the end of the day.

I would also point out that gay couples have been having wedding ceremonies for decades. The difference is that they can't sign the legal paperwork and thus don't end up with any legal recognition of the union afterward. But it doesn't stop some of them from buying the dress (er, dresses, or tuxedos, as appropriate) and cake and flowers and inviting a couple dozen or couple hundred of their friends and family to attend.