PARTNER PERSPECTIVE

Allowing Secular Celebrants Is a Matter of Equality for Nonreligious People

NICHOLAS LITTLE
Vice President and General Counsel, Center for Inquiry

Religious privilege is baked in to our society, and the nature of privilege is such that its beneficiaries rarely notice it. When privilege is challenged and removed, the previous beneficiaries will often cry foul and claim discrimination when all that is really happening is that others are being treated equally.

This is particularly the case for marriage, where religion and the secular state both have long term interests and involvement. During the fight for same-sex marriage rights, the opposition falsely claimed that marriage was primarily and originally a religious institution. Nonreligious people were in the forefront of those demanding the rights of same-sex couples to marry, and for good reason. Absent a legal right to marry, LGBTQ couples were denied access to almost 2,000 federal legal rights: from long term partners being denied access to sit beside the hospital bed of their dying lovers, to deportation of people (to theocracies that execute gay men) who were denied the right to marry their American citizen partner, to widowed partners cut off from benefits and faced with vast inheritance tax bills.

The Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which established the right across the U.S. to marry a person of the same sex, was a fundamental step forward in basic rights. But marriage as an institution in most states still carries elements of religious privilege. No longer only in who can get married, but also in who can solemnize a marriage. All states determine their own marriage laws, and this includes who may sign a marriage license, and thereby join the couple legally. All states permit religious ministers (of any faith or denomination) to serve such a role. States also permit secular officials, usually judges, mayors, and the like, to do so.

But there is a conspicuous omission here. The Center for Inquiry (CFI) trains secular celebrants to help nonreligious couples (or interfaith couples, or indeed anyone who wants a non-religious ceremony) celebrate or memorialize those family moments everyone has, regardless of religious belief, like weddings, funerals, and celebrations of new babies. Unfortunately, in most states, those individuals, despite being trained, cannot solemnize marriages. Why? Because we at CFI refuse to call them religious—because they simply aren’t.

One can solemnize weddings across the country by receiving an online ordination from one of many religious options, such as the Universal Life Church, the Church of Body Modification, the Church of Bacon, or the Church of the Dude. These claim status as religious organizations, and therefore cannot be treated differently from other (more traditional) religions. But giving someone the ability to perform such a function only if they are religious unfairly privileges religion and discriminates against the nonbelievers.

So we sued. We sued first in Indiana, where we initially lost, but, on appeal to the Seventh Circuit, won an important victory recognizing that excluding trained secular celebrants violated the federal constitution. Since then, we’ve won the legal right to have secular celebrants perform marriages in the courts in Illinois and Michigan and by changing legislation in D.C. and Oregon. CFI is currently suing Texas and working in California and Virginia to amend their laws.

States often claim that nonreligious options exist, in the form of judges and clerks. And that’s true. But the Seventh Circuit recognized that isn’t equality. Non-believers can have the ceremony they want, but then must take an extra step to receive legal recognition at the courthouse. During this process, they may be faced with a state official who insists on including religious language against the couple’s will in the ceremony. States can and must give nonreligious people the same rights as others to pick the celebrant they want at the place they want to do the service they want.

While this may not impact people lives as directly or severely as housing or workplace discrimination, it is just wrong and, more importantly, unconstitutional that the law treats nonreligious people differently when they seek to get married or to perform a marriage. As the population of non-believers continues to skyrocket, in particular among younger Americans who are more likely to be getting married, we will go on to seek equality in every state, so every couple who wants a secular celebrant can have one.