Center for Inquiry created the Secular Celebrant Program to train and certify secular celebrants to perform non-religious weddings, commitment ceremonies, funerals, memorials, and other “milestones of life”.
CFI certified Secular Celebrants may legally solemnize marriages in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington, DC. A lawsuit is in progress in Texas. Individuals in other states and countries are welcome to take the training workshop and become certified, but they are not able to legally solemnize weddings. No legal requirement exists for performing any other ceremony type.
BECOME A CFI SECULAR CELEBRANT
You can become a certified CFI Secular Celebrant by attending a CFI Secular Celebrant Training workshop and meeting a few other certification requirements.
Why a CFI Secular Celebrant Program?
Persons who are not affiliated with any religion constitute 29% of the US population.* Unfortunately, the choice of persons to conduct ceremonies for marriages, same sex commitments, memorials, and other rites of passage is usually between religious clergy and civil officials.
For a nonreligious person this can be a traumatic experience. They may be required to go through religious counseling and/or have religious references in their ceremony. They may be prevented from having their choice of music or readings as part of the ceremony. The local minister called on to conduct a funeral/memorial may preach a “come to Jesus” sermon or otherwise use religious references that are not in keeping with the worldview of the person being memorialized. Many of us have seen this done.
Additionally, civil officials are usually not available to do marriage ceremonies at the place and time of the couple’s choosing, but only in a government setting such as an office or the courthouse. Furthermore, these officials are typically personally unknown to the couple. Wedding ceremonies, memorials, and other life passages are extremely important events – they are life’s milestones – and people should be able to have these ceremonies conducted in a manner and by a person of their choosing.
While some people of the secular worldview do not see a need for rituals and ceremonies of any kind, many feel that having a way of marking life passages is important. CFI feels that this is a personal choice and that secular ceremonies – and persons to conduct these ceremonies – should be available to those who want them.
By utilizing the services of a CFI-certified secular celebrant, members of the non-religious community may mark life’s milestones in ways that are most personally meaningful to them. In addition, utilizing certified secular celebrants’ services to perform weddings will assist CFI in bringing legal challenges to laws that allow religious officials to solemnize marriages, but unconstitutionally bar representatives of secular organizations from doing so.
*According to the Pew Research Center as of December 2021.
Fighting for Equality for Secular Celebrants
Center for Inquiry is actively engaged in legislative and legal efforts to challenge the discriminatory laws that prohibit CFI Secular Celebrants from legally solemnizing marriages across the United States.
Due to our ongoing efforts, CFI certified Secular Celebrants may legally solemnize marriages in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington, DC.
In 2014 CFI won a landmark ruling allowing CFI Secular Celebrants to Solemnize marriages in Indiana. Ever since CFI has continued the fight for secular marriage equality and won a similar lawsuit in Illinois and helped pass Secular Celebrant legislation in Oregon in 2017.
In April 2020, CFI’s lawsuit in Michigan was resolved after MI Attorney General, Dana Nessel, reversed the government’s opposition to the lawsuit brought by the Center for Inquiry and promised that the state considers CFI Secular Celebrants to be covered by existing statutes regarding marriage solemnization. Legislative efforts are still ongoing to permanently codify this acknowledgment in the marriage statute.
CFI currently has an ongoing lawsuit in Texas, which has been appealed to the Circuit Court.
If you reside in a state that does not allow Secular Celebrants to legally solemnize weddings contact our CFI Secular Celebrant Program Directors, and let us know you are interested in assisting CFI with advocating with your state leaders to change the discriminatory law in your state.
Contact Us
Please email [email protected] for questions and program inquiries.
Reba Boyd Wooden
Deputy Director, Secular Celebrant Program
Executive Director, CFI Indiana
[email protected]
(317) 423-0710
(317) 797-5892
Secular Celebrant Interest Form
Please complete the form below to express interest in becoming a Secular Celebrant, and we will notify you of future training sessions.
Questions about the program? You can also email [email protected].