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That's Reverend Sternberg to you!
Dec. 4th, 2007 10:41 amLast night a dear friend of mine IM'd me...she wanted to chat with me about something important. I was worried that it might be something about her health...like me, she has seizures, and we share stories and help.
But this was something different. My friend, who is getting married later this month, asked from me a most honorable thing. She wanted me to officiate the wedding. I had to tell her that I'm not ordinated...in fact, it has never occurred to me to do such a thing. Heck, I'm not even an initiate yet in my coven, let alone a priestess. Yes, I've been a practicing Pagan for over twenty years, but still, I consider these degrees important.
But she reminded me of the ULC...the Universal Life Church, which does ordinations over the Internet. And she told me that as far as she was concerned, she and her spouse to be wanted me to do the ceremony because they felt that I would treat it with the dignity and honor that they wanted...that I cared.
Which I do.
I reviewed the ULC site, and among other things read a letter that they received from a Washington State attorney general about the validity of ULC ministers in the state of Washington. According to this attorney general, Washington State's Constitution and RCW statutes are specifically open and liberal towards religion in general, and marriage ceremonies in particular. As long as you follow the required dictates of filling out the civil union form (and not committing fraud in the process), and the person who is performing the ceremony is not attempting to do so fraudulently (and even then, the marriage ceremony is still valid if even one of the two involved believed that it was so), then it's a go.
But what really struck me was that the attorney general really came back to the concept of intent. It wasn't how long the person had been practicing his/her religion, or what type of religion s/he had been practicing, or how nice the ceremony looked, or how well it was performed. As long as the intent of the ceremony was to provide a religious environment for a marriage union, then it was a valid marriage ceremony.
And that, along with my friends' opinions of me, is really what caused me to fill out the form at the ULC and become:
Reverend D. Omaha Sternberg
But this was something different. My friend, who is getting married later this month, asked from me a most honorable thing. She wanted me to officiate the wedding. I had to tell her that I'm not ordinated...in fact, it has never occurred to me to do such a thing. Heck, I'm not even an initiate yet in my coven, let alone a priestess. Yes, I've been a practicing Pagan for over twenty years, but still, I consider these degrees important.
But she reminded me of the ULC...the Universal Life Church, which does ordinations over the Internet. And she told me that as far as she was concerned, she and her spouse to be wanted me to do the ceremony because they felt that I would treat it with the dignity and honor that they wanted...that I cared.
Which I do.
I reviewed the ULC site, and among other things read a letter that they received from a Washington State attorney general about the validity of ULC ministers in the state of Washington. According to this attorney general, Washington State's Constitution and RCW statutes are specifically open and liberal towards religion in general, and marriage ceremonies in particular. As long as you follow the required dictates of filling out the civil union form (and not committing fraud in the process), and the person who is performing the ceremony is not attempting to do so fraudulently (and even then, the marriage ceremony is still valid if even one of the two involved believed that it was so), then it's a go.
But what really struck me was that the attorney general really came back to the concept of intent. It wasn't how long the person had been practicing his/her religion, or what type of religion s/he had been practicing, or how nice the ceremony looked, or how well it was performed. As long as the intent of the ceremony was to provide a religious environment for a marriage union, then it was a valid marriage ceremony.
And that, along with my friends' opinions of me, is really what caused me to fill out the form at the ULC and become:
