Minnesota Quakers Won’t Certify Marriages Until It’s Legal For Everybody

A Quaker group in Minneapolis-St.Paul has announced that they will no longer certify marriages until the right is granted to everybody.

“We’re simply trying to be consistent with the will of God as we perceive it,” said Paul Landskroener, clerk of the Twin Cities Friends Meeting, in an interview with MPR’s All Things Considered on Monday. The congregation will continue to hold both opposite-sex and same-sex weddings at its meeting house, but will no longer sign the legal marriage certificate for opposite-sex couples. Instead, couples will need to have the certificate signed by a justice of the peace. “Everything else proceeds as it normally has, except that we will not sign the marriage certificate,” Landskroener said. Unlike many churches, Quakers do not have ordained ministers. Couples are married by appearing before the congregation and speaking their vows to each other. Several witnesses then sign the marriage certificate to pronounce the couple legally married. The Twin Cities Friends Meeting reached its decision in November after three years of discussion. The group plans to revisit the decision in three years.