Pretty cool...

[geminigirl]

by KYW's David Madden
A South Jersey minister is taking a stand in an ongoing legal battle to sanction same-sex marriages in the Garden State.

Rev. Melanie Morel Sullivan (right) is pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Cherry Hill and performs about a dozen religious marriages a year -- half of which, she says, involve same-sex couples.

Since they can't have a marriage license, she says, she will no longer sign civil marriage licenses -- for anyone.

She equates the state's ban on same-sex marriage licenses to banning interracial marriages during the days of segregation down South, where she grew up.

So for now, she'll arrange for a civil authority to sign licenses for heterosexual couples:

"I wanted to make sure that they were inconvenienced as little as possible while being able to maintain what was, for me, an ethical boundary."


Her church's board supports her position. She acknowleges that her colleagues from other faiths are split, although Sullivan says some are quietly in her corner.

A lawsuit could eventually force New Jersey to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Comments

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

nice.

[geminigirl]

I like that she said that she wouldn't do it, but does make arrangements for a civil authority to sign the marriage licenses. I think she has a good sense of civil disobedience going there.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. When we got married, our officiant signed the papers shortly after the ceremony, we gave them to the maid of honor, and she dropped them in the mail while we were on our honeymoon.

If the minister refused to sign the license, but made arrangements for someone else to sign off on it, then isn't the "civil authority" just taking her word about the ceremony actually being properly performed, and about the individuals involved? Isn't that a violation of the principle behind signing off on a marriage license (namely, that these individuals, whose identity is attested to by the witnesses, have entered into a binding arrangement duly performed by a person who has been granted those powers by the state)? I wonder how she's getting around that part of it.

If the minister wants to say, "My fee also includes having someone present to meet the requirements of the law, since I won't sign marriage licenses", that's her business. She's not making any sacrifice of her own (unless she's paying out of her own pocket to get the licenses signed), nor is she asking the couples to make a sacrifice -- that's not civil disobedience, it's a publicity stunt. It's still a worthwhile thing to do, but call it what it is.

[grendelgongon.livejournal.com]

I would guess she's doing what actually quite a number of other, mostly unitarian, officiants are doing: she won't sign off on the marriage license but will recommend the folks she's marrying to a justice of the peace or similar person who will. You don't have to have the ceremony, etc or any ceremony actually to get married--you just have to sign the right document with the right official witness, which is what she's arranging for. That said, I wouldn't call it civil disobedience either.

On a practical level she is making a sacrifice, though--many folks want the convenience of the officiant signing the legal documents, so choose an officiant who will actually perform both parts of the marriage. And the couple is making a sacrifice in terms of an extra step to get married. Very small sacrifices, I'll grant.