In three separate cases, three Pennsylvania county judges have ruled that marriages performed by ministers who do not have houses of worship or congregations are legal, rejecting a contrary 2007 ruling that had sowed statewide confusion.
All three suits were brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which argued that York County Judge Maria Musti Cook was wrong to invalidate a marriage in 2007 because the minister who performed it was ordained online and did not have a physical church or congregation.
Why was the ACLU involved in this? That strikes me as somewhat bizarre.
Hopper, my reaction exactly.
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This is odd because Pennsylvania does not actually require a “minister” to perform a religious ceremony–after all, the Quakers did not have clergy. The state has what is called a “Quaker marriage license”–not restricted to Quakers–which is signed by the couple and by witnesses but not by any religious officiant.
It makes no sense to claim that having an improper officiant invalidates the marriage when there is a legal option that involves no officiant whatsoever.