But Was It Legal?

Great Wedding! But Was It Legal?

Great Wedding! But Was It Legal?
By DEVAN SIPHER
Published: August 5, 2007
As many people turn to friends and relatives to perform their marriage ceremonies, more are bound to discover that they may not be legally married.

Intro:

In an era of six-figure weddings when couples obsess about the band playlist and hand towels for the restrooms, one question may get short shrift: Is the person performing the wedding legally able to do so?

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For some couples, the legality of the marriage is a secondary consideration. They see their wedding as a public celebration of their commitment to each other and little more than that.

So, with their encouragement, friends and relatives with no more interest in ministering than the looming wedding date sign up with online ministries, where they can become ordained just by typing in their name and address.

The Universal Life Church alone has ordained more than 18 million ministers since it was founded in 1959 in Modesto, Calif. The organization ordains 10,000 people a month, twice as many as in 2000, according to Andre Hensley, the church’s president. Eighty percent join the fold solely to perform weddings, he said.

The Church of Spiritual Humanism, the Rose Ministries and the Temple of Earth, which describes itself as a “religion-free religion,” also have online ministry sites.

Somehow forgotten is that marriage is a legal contract. And three states besides Connecticut — Alabama, Virginia and Tennessee — as well as other jurisdictions, prohibit weddings performed by ministers who do not have active ministries.


Comments:

1. Image © from www.brickshelf.com
   
2. Oprah offers these Questions to ask before you get married. Some are good. Others presume that a couple is already living together.
   
3. God's view of marriage:
   
   
   
   1. Proverbs 18:22, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing,And obtains favor from the LORD"
      
   2. Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge"
      
   3. 1 Corinthians 7:39, "A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord."
      
   4. 2 Corinthians 6:14, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?"