Hi All--
Question about officiating:
We have a family friend that is a city prosecutor. His relative is a judge and had mentioned a while back that some judges (depending on the city) have the power to grant a "judge for the week" sort of thing to some folks (I don't know what the qualifications for this are) that request so they can officiate a wedding. The issue is, the judge relative is the only one in our city that can grant the "judge for the week status". Since the family friend and his relative are in the same city and are related, the judge relative can't grant this sort of designation to the family friend (nepotism rules). Additionally, only a judge in a city you either work or live in can grant these and the family friend lives and works in the same city.
My question is around online ordaination. We would still like this family friend to officiate so I looked into getting ordained online. I know that the state of Ohio requires those who can legally officiate, register with the state for a fee. If you are not a justice of the peace, you have to give your religious group affiliation and you have to be rightfully ordained. Can someone in Ohio get ordained online and use the church related to the online ordaination as their religious group affiliation? Has anyone done this?