[YAF-announce] question about (non Quaker) weddings

[Frederick Martin]

I was on the committee of my monthly meeting which took care of the 
arrangements when my friends Elizabeth and Craig Waterman were married.  
(I got to read the certificate out loud during the wedding...I was 
excited)  What makes the marriage "official" from the Quaker point of 
view is that a clearness committee, and then a monthly meeting, agreed 
that those people are already meant to be married in spirit.  (How does 
George Fox say it?  Something like, "...for we marry none, but it is God 
who marries them...") So the monthly meeting holds a special meeting for 
worship, which is the wedding, and the marriage certificate is a special 
minute of that special meeting-for-worship-with-a-concern-for-marrying.  
But you know this part.

 From the *legal* point of view, apparently the clerk of the monthly 
meeting signs the marriage license.  In New Hampshire you get a marriage 
license from the town clerk's office, and then it needs to be signed, 
usually by the church minister who officiated.  For a while I thought 
that was a route toward legal marriage for same-gender folks in NH... 
what if a Friend got elected town clerk; then that Friend could then 
issue an official, legal marriage license which, after a standard Quaker 
wedding, a Friends meeting clerk would then sign!  But apparently 
there's a law which prevents it... (civil disobedience needed?)

Sometimes Quakers are doing things, like prison visits, where they need 
to be "officially" ordained, and usually what they get is a minute from 
their monthly and quarterly meetings "recording" them as ministers.  
Hank Bause in Keene has this, for example.  Some people in Wellesley 
probably do too, since they visit Concord prison a lot.

Hope this helps!  I don't know what to say about the Internet ordination...

Frederick

Holly Baldwin wrote:
> Hey Folks,
>
> Some friends of mine asked me to marry them (officiate) at their wedding in NH.
>
> Have any of you done this?  What did you do?  I have to be "ordained"
> in my church.  It seems like the easiest thing to do is to do a church
> of the internet/rolling stone/universal life whatever that is.  But I
> was wondering if perhaps because we are Quakers, we are all ordained
> anyway???
>
> Have any of you done this?  Did you worry about the integrity of your
> "real" affiliation with your meeting?
>
> Also, if anyone has done this, I'd like to know what sorts of things
> you did to prepare.  Thanks!
>
> -Holly
>
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