Bucks judge approves unusual marriages

There was good news yesterday for Jason and Jennifer O'Neill, a Philadelphia couple whose 2005 Bucks County marriage had been thrown into question because they used a minister ordained online. For many other similarly situated couples, too.

Bucks County Court Judge C. Theodore Fritsch Jr. declared the marriage valid, even though the minister - Jason O'Neill's uncle, Robert A. Norman - had been ordained in a matter of minutes by the Universal Life Church after completing a short form online.

In the 2007 case that threw the O'Neills' marriage and hundreds of others into question, a York County judge declared a marriage there invalid because the online minister "did not regularly preach in a church or have an actual congregation."

But Fritsch ignored the issue of a church building and congregation, ruling instead that the sole question before his court was whether a Universal Life Church (ULC) minister met the Pennsylvania Marriage Act criterion that a minister, priest or rabbi have "a regularly established church."

"We agree with Judge Fritsch that as long as a religious organization operates under a widely recognized system of beliefs, as the ULC clearly does, the law does not permit the courts to tell that organization who it can and cannot allow to be a minister," said Joshua M. Kaplowitz of Drinker, Biddle & Reath, who represented the O'Neills on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

But Fritsch's ruling is binding only in Bucks County.

"Statewide, thousands of couples will be relieved by this decision, but the threat is not completely absent unless they live in Bucks County," Kaplowitz said.

In the last 10 years, engaged couples, particularly those from different religions like the O'Neills, have increasingly sought to personalize their weddings by having the ceremonies performed by friends ordained online or by non-denominational individuals whose presence would not offend their families' religious practices.

That trend drew the ire of some county clerks and registers of wills statewide, who called the practice an affront to the institution of marriage and sought to disqualify so-called online officiants.

Among them was Bucks County Clerk of Orphans' Court Barbara G. Reilly, who launched a public-information campaign about the York County ruling. Reilly advised Bucks County couples to reapply for marriage licenses, and 36 couples were remarried as a result.

Reilly said she had not yet studied Fritsch's ruling, but found the news "puzzling."

"If the judge is right, then the law is wrong," Reilly said. "The law is flawed and must be restructured."

"I guess this means a minister from the Church of the Wineskins, for example - that's another one I've dealt with - would have to prove his church meets at least the same criteria as the ULC," Reilly said.

In the last three months, the ACLU has won similar victories in a Montgomery County case involving another ULC minister and in a Philadelphia case involving a Jesuit priest.

"It is a shame that a committed couple like this ever had to worry about the validity of their marriage," said Mary Catherine Roper of the ACLU. "Pennsylvania has a long and proud tradition of religious tolerance, and the campaign against these ministers dishonors that tradition."

Jason O'Neill, 29, said he and Jennifer, 29, were pleased with the ruling.

"Without a doubt, this was a genuine concern for us," he said. "We knew there were many areas in which a negative ruling could come back to bite us. We had tax, health insurance and other legal issues, so this is a relief. I hope other couples will see the ruling and feel comforted."