Thinking of running off to Las Vegas for a quick wedding? You can rest assured that the bureaucrats in Clark County, Nevada, have your safety in mind. New regulations require ministers to undergo fingerprinting and background checks before they can perform marriages in the county which includes the quickie marriage capital of the world, Las Vegas. Starting today ministers must submit to background checks, and anyone with a felony conviction on his or her record will be ineligible to perform wedding ceremonies. The regulations also require that the minister have a weekly congregation of at least 20 people.
Clark County Clerk Shirley Parraguirre told the Associated Press, “We needed a standard. We need something to go by.”
The Nevada American Civil Liberties Union criticized the new regulations, which are a blatant violation of the First Amendment. As ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein pointed out, under the standards Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Sir Thomas More would all be banned from performing marriage ceremonies under these standards.
Parraguirre says she’s only interested in helping couples avoid fraud, but an easier way to achieve that would be to get the government entirely out of the marriage business altogether.
Source:
Las Vegas Ministers to Be Checked. The Associated Press, December 22, 2000.