I think I may have just uncovered a lie in the Big Marriage Deep State.
Just last week I participated in the wedding of my friends Bryan and Heather.
By participating, I mean I stood between them with a Bible, read their vows and pronounced them man and wife.
The couple, who had been dating for quite some time, were surrounded by friends and family at their home. When they announced their intentions to marry, I sort of flippantly said I would do it. They then pressed home the idea.
I found an online instant ordination and sent them my $46.
A week or so later, some rather official-looking pieces of paper came in an envelope, and I was excited to be an ordained officiant in the Universal Life Church.
It was all a sham.
At the completion of the wedding, the couple, a witness and I went to the dining room to put our names on the license.
In the line for officiant, the form simply required my printed name, signed name and address. It was the same for the witness save for the printed name.
There was no space for ordination registration or church affiliation.
I was actually a bit disappointed, but then I gave more thought to the legalities of requiring a minister to be registered in some official capacity with the state or local government.
It would be a violation of the First Amendment.
Here’s the full text of the amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It’s that first part, the Establishment Clause, which the registration of ordained ministers would run afoul. Also, for those who would say states aren’t Congress, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, says otherwise.
If preachers were required to register their ordination or be licensed by a local government office, that office could then arbitrarily decide who could be a preacher thus creating an establishment of religion.
So why do preachers sometimes say, “By the power vested in me by the state of Mississippi, I now pronounce you man and wife,” at the end of the ceremony?
Some do, but it’s not a requirement.
A pastor friend of mine who was ordained in Virginia in the 1990s had to take an oath and make a vow to uphold and abide by the laws of the Commonwealth.
He said he ends all his wedding services with the by-the-power line because “people expect it.”
He’s not wrong there. I asked a few friends whether that line ended their marriage and most were married so long ago they couldn’t really remember, but most would say it is a part of the ceremony.
I’ve been married twice and can’t remember from either set of vows.
We all have also heard about the word obey being used in the wife’s wedding vows as well. In researching a scripted set of vows for this wedding, I found it nowhere.
I think it’s important to remember how separate our religion should be from our government and vice versa.
We can’t have our religious views dictated by elected officials and we can’t dictate our religious views to a country governed by those elected officials.
While some may decry the loss of religious direction in the country, this most important separation of church and state is the only way the one doesn’t ensure the destruction of the other.
But, none of that mattered to Bryan and Heather last Tuesday. They just wanted to be married and live the rest of their lives as man and wife.
To that, they both said, “I do.”
Jon Alverson is proud to be the publisher and editor of the Delta Democrat-Times. Write to him at jalverson@ddtonline.com or call him at 662-335-1155.
