The Universal Life Church has been around for 47 years. Founded by the late Kirby Hensley (a man I met many years ago), the church takes an extremely broad, extremely liberal view of man's relationship to the unknown force or forces that many people call deities.

Do only that which is right.

The idea is that while the civil authorities (in the form of the state) possess the power to regulate marriage by issuing licenses, the nature of the religious ceremony and the qualifications of a minister are beyond government purview.

Not, however, in Pennsylvania. A couple in York county decided they wanted to marry so they filled out the forms, paid the fee, obtained the marriage license, and then married each other in a ceremony officiated by a ULC minister.

Like a lot of marriages, theirs ran into trouble in the first year, but unlike most divorce-seekers, they decided that the marital difficulties somehow resulted from a defect in the minister's credentials. Amazingly, a judge agreed with them:

Are marriages valid if performed by people who were "ordained" by online churches in a matter of minutes and have no congregation? Answer: No.

In a York County case, a Common Pleas Court judge invalidated a 10-month marriage, finding that a friend of the bride's who officiated at the wedding didn't have the power to do so under Pennsylvania law even though he had been ordained online by the Universal Life Church. The judge ruled the friend didn't qualify as a minister under state law because he had no regular congregation or place of worship.

A state lawmaker is sponsoring an amendment that would prevent those who have received quickie ordinations from performing marriages in the future.

"Right now, the marriage law in Pennsylvania is in a state of upheaval," said David Cleaver, solicitor for the statewide Association of Registers of Wills and Clerks of Orphans Court, the two row offices that issue marriage licenses in Pennsylvania. "I would love the legislature to clarify this because then we would all be reading the same sheet of music."

Pennsylvania first put its marriage law in writing in 1682, but that has not stopped it from being interpreted differently, county by county, ever since.

Anna and Casey Pickett fell in love during a college class on Transcendental literature, reveling in the nature-loving rhapsodies of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

It was only natural, then, that when the couple married last July, they would stand beside a rustic lake in Pennsylvania, with the professor whose class brought them together officiating at the ceremony.

Two months later, however, the couple got a call from a county clerk in Pennsylvania, who told them their marriage might not be valid. And years from now, the clerk said, when they bought a house, applied for government benefits or had children, they might have a problem.

"It was a total shock," said Anna Ruth Pickett, 27, who works in environmental justice for the New York-based Ford Foundation.

The problem: Their professor, T. Scott McMillen, who was not a minister, got ordained online to perform the ceremony. In September, a judge in York County, Pennsylvania, ruled that ministers who do not have a "regularly established church or congregation" cannot perform marriages under state law.

The American Civil Liberties Union says Pennsylvania officials have trampled the boundary between church and state and is mulling legal action.

Meanwhile, 30 state lawmakers have introduced a bill in Pennsylvania's General Assembly that would exclude wedding officiants who are ordained "by mail order or via the Internet or any other electronic means."

"To me, if you want to perform marriages, you have to go to school and learn the teachings for the correct way to perform this extremely solemn ceremony," said state Rep. Katie True, a Lancaster County Republican who co-sponsored the bill.

Nevertheless, the York County judge (in a decision I think is eminently reversible) decided that ministers must have credentials of the sort he deems worthy of state approval:

Adams Charles Robert Johnston hadn't done any of that, according to York County Common Pleas Judge Maria Musti Cook -- the judge who issued the order -- when he married two friends in August 2006.

Johnston was ordained online "in five minutes" by the Universal Life Church, Cook's ruling states. Johnston testified that he was a member of the church by virtue of his ordination but that he had never attended any church meetings, nor did he have a congregation.

Without a church or a congregation, Cook ruled, Johnston was not a minister. At the request of the wife, Dorie Heyer, 21, the marriage was declared invalid.

After the ruling, Cleaver sent an e-mail to all county clerks and registers, telling them not to accept marriage licenses from couples married by online ministers. Five days later, he sent a second e-mail, telling them to accept the licenses.

"I said to myself: Wait a minute, we're not cops. We're not entrusted to check out these licenses," he said, explaining his change of mind.

MaryCatherine Roper of the ACLU said that "lots of clergy don't have congregations but do other things, and to suggest that those are not legitimate ministers is insulting and disregarding the religious work of any number of denominations."

In its 47 year existence, the ULC has not changed its doctines. Anyone who wants to become a minister can be ordained by filling out their form and agreeing to their simple religious guidelines.

I think the sudden firestorm is grounded in the fact that ordinations can now be obtained online. Big effing deal. What makes one form of communication between humans more suspect than another? Suppose a religious-minded blogger decided to form the Divine Church of the Holy Blog, and decided upon a common set of beliefs, based on articulable principles known and understood and agreed to by all interested joiners. Why wouldn't their congregation ("Holy Blogroll") and place of abode be just as valid as any other? What business is it of the government to decide?

But somehow, the fact of online ULC ordination is seen as tainting the ordination in a manner in which it wouldn't be tainted if obtained by mail. I think making any inquiries into the nature of beliefs and qualifications of any minister is beyond the purview of the state.

Quite incidentally, I'd even say this about crackpot denominations run by self-appointed freelance ministers with whose tenets I disagree.

Last night I wrote a blog post about two fringe type "street preachers" -- one of whom was ordained by the "God Hates Fags" Church. Much as I dislike their religious doctrines, their credentials are not the state's business, and they are just as free to perform marriages as anyone else.

Moreover, there are 6000 ULC ministers in Pennsylvania, and I am sure that there are many weddings at which they've officiated.

As Cook notes in her ruling, Pennsylvania courts have not addressed the validity of marriages performed by ministers who are ordained online through the Universal Life Church.

However, the church has a tangled history with other states' marriage laws. The Supreme Courts of New York, Virginia and North Carolina have invalidated marriages performed by Universal Life Church ministers. Courts in Mississippi and Utah, on the other hand, have ruled that the state must recognize them.

George Freeman, president of the Seattle-based Universal Life Church Monastery, which ordained Johnston and counts 6,000 ministers in Pennsylvania, said the ruling is religious "elitism."

"I guess if you're a pagan or a druid and you hang out in the woods or rocks and have a ceremony, that's not going to work," Freeman said.

The Universal Life Church Monastery, which separated from the Modesto, Calif.-based Universal Life Church in 2006 over financial and legal disputes, is split between seekers and people who want to marry their friends, Freeman said.

Claiming its only tenets are "to promote freedom of religion" and "to do that which is right," the Universal Life Church Monastery and its affiliates claim to have ordained more than 20 million people.

Roper said "dozens" of people have contacted the ACLU about the York County ruling. Among them are the Picketts.

"The fact that someone could just decide that our marriage is null and void, without us having any say about it," said Casey Pickett, "that's not a decision that someone should be able to make."

Anyway, I think the Picketts are right. As to the ULC, they plan to fight the decision, and it appears they also plan to fight the ridiculous ordination law:

The brevity of this marriage, as with many others in America, reflects not on the Universal Life Church minister but on the couple. It is inappropriate for Ms. Heyer to blame the failure of her marriage on the ULC administered ceremony.

We have not seen Judge Cook's decision regarding the authorization of Adam Johnston to perform marriages under Pennsylvania statutes. It is our position that any infringement upon the rights of our ministers is an infringement on the protections of the First Amendment which guarantees:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..."

As such, it is apparent that Judge Cook's decision is an impermissible attack upon the constitution. Moreover, the Universal Life Church Monastery is prepared to take the following action:

1. Seek Constitutional counsel licensed in the state of Pennsylvania to bring action in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. [42 USC 1985]
2. Name the county officials in their individual and official capacity in a Federal lawsuit for making arbitrary and capricious decisions under the color of law.
3. Seek a declaratory judgment asking that the Federal Judiciary enjoin York County officials and the state of PA from making further decisions as to the legitimacy of one church over another.

Marriage licenses are state created, so it is natural to expect people to talk about "safeguarding" the institution of marriage in that respect. Religious ordination, however, is not a state created institution, and the state simply has no business there.

If the state can get into the institution of ordination, and regulate credentials of ministers, what's to stop it from getting into the credentials of journalists, and regulate online journalism?

I better ordain myself as an online journalist fast, before they close the "loophole."

UPDATE: I'm honored to see that this post has been ordained! My thanks to Blogfather Reynolds for linking this post, and a warm welcome to all.

All are free to gather here and comment. Absolutely no credentials required.

UPDATE: My thanks to Eugene Volokh for linking this post in a very interesting discussion.

UPDATE: My thanks to Sean Kinsell for linking this post in a great one of his own. Don't miss Sean's thoughts.

And be sure to read his earlier post on the subject of what makes a religion "legitimate."

AND MORE: In addition to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (which applies to the states), the Pennsylvania bill in question also appears to violate the Pennsylvania Constitution:

Religious Freedom
Section 3.

All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship or to maintain any ministry against his consent; no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience, and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship.