The Universal Life Church re-affirmed its support for its ministers to officiate legal weddings - including same-sex weddings - across the country after a new development in its case against Virginia officials.
SEATTLE, Aug. 14, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Universal Life Church (ULC) is sounding the alarm as threats to marriage equality mount across the United States.
The ULC is currently engaged in a legal battle with county clerks and prosecutors in Virginia who have refused to allow ULC-ordained ministers to solemnize marriages (Universal Life Church Monastery Storehouse et al v. R Steven Landes et al, Civil Action No. 5:25-cv-00047-JHY-JCH (W.D. Va.)).
In a troubling development, attorneys representing these officials have moved to dismiss the case, claiming sovereign immunity and doubling-down on their power to discriminate. This is not only an attack on the Universal Life Church and its ministers' constitutional rights to religious freedom, equality, and free expression, but part of a broader effort to erode the constitutional rights of all couples, including same-sex couples, to marry. Attorneys for the ULC have filed a response challenging the request to dismiss as the Church vows to fight on.
These local challenges come just as the Supreme Court has been asked to reconsider Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
That case, brought by former Kentucky clerk Kim Davis — jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue a marriage license to a gay couple — asks the Court to overturn Obergefell. If the Justices agree to hear it next spring, the right to marry could be stripped away from millions by this time next year. With 32 states still holding active same-sex marriage bans on their books, the consequences would be immediate and devastating.
"No matter what happens in Virginia or at the Supreme Court, the Universal Life Church will never stop defending the right of our ministers to officiate weddings, including same-sex weddings," said a ULC spokesperson. "Our ministers have long stood on the front lines in the fight for love, unity, and equality — and we will not back down now."
The Universal Life Church is a non-denominational religious organization that has ordained more than 20 million ministers worldwide, empowering individuals of all creeds and colors to perform weddings, funerals, and other ceremonies in their communities. Given the historical treatment of members of the LGBTQ+ community by institutional religious bodies, it has been estimated that the vast majority of same-sex marriages in the United States are solemnized by ministers ordained by the Universal Life Church. Guided by the principle that "We are all children of the same universe," the ULC champions freedom of religion and the right of all couples to marry, regardless of their orientation.
Media Contact
Presiding Chaplain Br. G. Martin Freeman, Universal Life Church, 1 2062851086, [email protected], https://www.ulc.org
SOURCE Universal Life Church
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