Minister Wants to Marry Couples Without State Licenses

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DETROIT, MI – A Detroit minister who sued Michigan in federal court last January for the right to marry same-sex couples — half a year before the U.S. Supreme Court’s watershed ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states — is now asking a federal judge if clerics can marry couples who don’t have a marriage license from the state.

The Rev. Neil Patrick Carrick, a former pastor with the United Church of Christ, believes ministers, rabbis, imams and other religious clergy shouldn’t have to fear a criminal penalty when they marry people “in the eyes of God” without the state being involved.

Examples of couples who might want to marry “in the eyes of God” only include elderly couples who fear they will lose their Social Security benefits if they are legally married, Carrick’s attorney, Mark Killar, told The Detroit News.

“This is going to affect a lot of seniors,” Kollar said.

Michigan law requires couples that want to marry to get a license from a municipal clerk and present it to the person officiating. The wedding also must be performed before witnesses.

Clergy who perform marriages without a license can be charged with a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days and fines of up to $1,000.

Carrick thinks legally punishing clergy who perform religious marriage ceremonies that don’t have the state’s blessing is “a direct offense to the establishment and free speech clause of the First Amendment.”

The law requiring state issued marriage license is also a “separation of church and state issue,” he said.

Lawyers on both sides of the dispute have until Friday to file legal briefs with U.S. District Judge Judith Levy. Defendants in the suit are Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette.

In her five-page order, Levy wrote: “The question plaintiff seeks to have the court determine in this case is this: do Michigan laws prohibiting those authorized to ‘solemnize marriages’ from performing marriages that are illegal in the state of Michigan violate the First Amendment, where the marriage ceremony is a purely private, religious one?”

The judge also said: “There is a different question that must be answered before the court can reach plaintiff’s question. That question is: do the aforementioned laws govern purely private ceremonies that are not intended to give legal effect to a marriage?”

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