Separation of Church and State or maybe Separation of you from your money?

I asked another ex-member come by the other night for a little coffee, good humor and conversation. The subject of this person's ordination came up. This ex-member said he had not been able to use his ministerial title for some time. The reason is that he had not paid the Academy for Psychic Studies for the fees necessary to register him with the state. That registration was said to give a minister the legal protection necessary to perform a marriage, conduct pastoral counseling and all the other things that a minister must do.

The registration and fees associated with it are to be paid directly to the Academy for Psychic Studies, who in turn, would send the paperwork and the license fees to the State of California. I was not aware that the State of California required registration of clergy and none of the ministers I knew had a state-issued minister's card, certificate or license.

I just could not believe that a church has required to register clergy with a government agency. The first amendment is usually interpreted as requiring the government to stay well away from religion and certainly does forbid the regulation of a religious belief. There just could not be a state requirement to license, regulate or register clergy. It would be a clear violation of the "free exercise clause" of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So, this notion of registering with the state stank like tuna left out for a week.

I decided to ask the California Department of Public Health, which has jurisdiction over who can conduct weddings and pastoral counseling. As it turns out, there is no California registry of clergy. The State of California has never maintained a list of registered clergy and never intends to.

Members of the clergy have no requirement to obtain a license or register in California just to conduct a marriage or provide pastoral counseling. Since the government is forbidden to get involved in religious issues (like who is qualified to be a minister) keeping an official State of California list of approved ministers, priests, rabbis and the like would be clearly unconstitutional.

As far as the state is concerned, once you are ordained as clergy at any church of any faith or denomination anywhere in the world, you are ordained as clergy and are empowered to conduct your pastoral duties and conduct marriages anywhere in the State of California. No verification is required by the state.

This ability to conduct a marriage remains valid for as long as the clergy wants to maintain his ordination. There is no yearly expiration of one's status a clergy, in the state's eyes. Even if you haven't thrown a wad of money into the Witches of Ellsworth's cauldron for a decade, you are as much a minister now as the day they gave you that dubious position.

In fact, all that the State of California requires of the minister performing a wedding is a recognition by the couple that the minister is actually a minister. You don't even really need to be ordained by an established church to perform a marriage; you can make up your own church (call it the church of the holy underwear with skid marks on them, if you like) and ordain yourself. Pretty easy, huh?

Same goes for any other ministerial duty. Just be sure you have some kind of entity that will serve as your church and you are good to go.

I've got one myself. It's from the Universal Life Church. It's a real certificate from a religious entity here in California. There have been many, many people who were ordained through the Universal Life Church and many of those were ordained for the purpose of conducting a wedding ceremony.

The certificate was free. The Academy for Psychic Studies charges tens of thousands of dollars to complete the ministerial training course - at least, it will take you tens of thousands of dollars before they decide to hand you a ministerial title. Thankfully, I don't have that stigma from the Academy for Psychic Studies.

Oddly, though, the Spiritual Rights Foundation (in the form of Bill Duby and Angela Silva) went on forever about how the SRF ministerial certificate was issued by the Universal Life Church.  Why would a church need to have another church issue a certificate of ordination for them?

If SRF was really a church, all the State of California and the United States of America requires is SRF's statement they are a church and the recognition of the congregation they are a church.  As SRF was fond of saying: "everything is done by agreement".  They must be too dense or paranoid to see they only needed a simple agreement to become a church.

So, this bit about them needing to issue ordination from the Universal Life Church must have been another attempt by Bill Duby to deceive and confuse.

I'm sure the SRF Secret Police Agents who surreptitiously peruse this blog will scoff at the validity of the Universal Life Church certificate of ordination. After all, they say, you get what you pay for.

But many, including our friend, received an SRF ministerial certificate that was at least purportedly from that same Universal Life Church.  Did they get what they paid for?

Well, that's true - sometimes. For all the money they put into the Academy for Psychic Studies, I wonder how valuable is their own certificate of ordination?

As far as a wedding is concerned, they have equal value. As far as giving pastoral counseling goes, they are both equally protective and valuable. Certainly, if the First Amendment protects the Academy for Psychic Studies as a religious organization, why can't any other such organizations enjoy equal rights?

Of course in the eyes of the Academy for Psychic Studies, there's no value in a "mail-order" ordination that costs nothing.

But in the citizen's eyes, in the eyes of the State of California, in the eyes of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, there is value. And their eyes are the only ones that matter.

What about that fee, then?

The State does not require it. Who does and where is that money going?