In Theory:

Kern County Clerk Ann Barnett recently announced her office has ceased officiating civil weddings. The timing angered some critics, who noted it came just days before Tuesday, when same-sex couples could legally apply for marriage licenses. Barnett cited financial reasons for the move, but she is being represented by a conservative Christian legal defense fund, and she asked the organization to defend her if she stopped performing all marriage ceremonies. If Barnett stopped the wedding ceremonies on principle, do you think that’s proper?

“I want out of the wedding business!” so say friends, some of whom are clergy and some are judges. Section 401.b of the California Family Code notes that any person in the state of California can be deputized to perform civil marriages.

Hopefully, current brouhahas as to “Who may be married?” and “Who will solemnize which marriages?” will eventually allow couples to choose any person to officiate and permit those of us who have traditionally solemnized marriages to follow our conscientious best judgments.

If the Kern County clerk stopped doing civil weddings on nondiscriminatory and well-considered principle, and if she is being honest about her reasoning, I support her.

For myself, I would like to stop acting as an agent of the state signing a “License and Certificate of Marriage” as the “Person Solemnizing Marriage” and act only as I was ordained to do and bless the covenant of marriage in the name of God.

The Very Rev’d Canon Peter D. Haynes

Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

No, it is not proper to stop the officiation of weddings by a licensed California officiant. Judaism follows the law of Dina D’Malchuta Dina, which means the way of the civil law is the way of the land.

The law of California is the law of the land. Judaism abides by these customs. This includes marriage and divorce laws.

The parties to a marital wedding agreement with any vendor, including a rabbi, should desire to comply fully with the provisions of California state law prohibiting refusal by any officiant, or rabbi, to accept, and not to agree is in violation of civil law.

This therefore forces a rabbi to amend the usual marriage ceremony to a better individualized version of a ceremony or wedding document text (ketubah) as provided and set by Jewish law.