Title: State v. Barclay
Citation: 238 Kan. 148, 708 P.2d 972
Docket Number: 57,571
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: October 25, 1985

238 Kan. 148 (1985)
708 P.2d 972
STATE OF KANSAS, Appellant,
v.
WILLIAM G. BARCLAY, Appellee.
No. 57,571

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed October 25, 1985.
Geary N. Gorup, assistant district attorney, argued the cause, and Clark V. Owens, district attorney, and Robert T. Stephan, attorney general, were with him on the brief for appellant.
E. Lael Alkire, of Wichita, argued the cause, and Ernest L. Tousley, of O'Hara, O'Hara &amp; Tousley, of Wichita, was with him on the brief for appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
McFARLAND, J.:
Defendant William G. Barclay is an ordained Baptist minister who operates a wedding chapel in Wichita. Defendant refused to officiate at certain wedding ceremonies to be held in his chapel on the ground that a marriage of a black person and a white person violated his religious beliefs. The District Attorney's office filed a complaint/information against the defendant charging him with three counts of denial of civil rights contrary to K.S.A. 21-4003(1)(d). The district court dismissed the complaint on the ground that K.S.A. 21-4003 was unconstitutional as applied to defendant herein. The State appeals from said dismissal pursuant to K.S.A. 22-3602(b).
K.S.A. 21-4003 provides:
The matter was determined on stipulations of fact entered into by the parties. They are as follows:
"[Original] Stipulation
*150 "SUPPLEMENTAL STIPULATIONS
Further, the parties stipulated that the following (in affidavit form) would be the substance of defendant's testimony on direct examination if called to testify:
Additionally, it was stated in arguments before the district court and this court that while defendant would not personally perform the marriage sacrament to interracial couples, such marriages have been conducted at the wedding chapel with defendant arranging for a judge to officiate therein. The State does not challenge these factual contentions and we accept them, as did the district court, as a part of the stipulated facts.
Pertinent Kansas statutes relative to marriage are as follows:
(3) any judge or justice of a court of record; and
Does K.S.A. 21-4003(1)(d) compel defendant to perform, personally, the wedding ceremony to any couples with: (1) legal capacity to marry; and (2) adequate funds to pay for the services? We believe not.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
While the First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law...", it goes without saying that, at this point in the development of constitutional theory, the First Amendment is applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Powers v. State Department of Social Welfare, 208 Kan. 605, 614, 498 P.2d 590 (1972).
Section 7 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights provides:
Defendant's capacity to perform weddings in Kansas is derived wholly from his status as an ordained clergyman, and when he is officiating at a wedding, he is performing a religious sacrament. Clearly, ownership of the wedding chapel business does not require the owner to be ordained. A lay person could own such a business and make arrangements, when requested, for a person (judge or minister) to officiate at the ceremony. Use of the premises with such additional amenities as the couple may contract for and receipt of the personal services of the defendant in officiating at the ceremony are not components of one indivisible unit. Couples patronizing the wedding chapel may, in essence, rent the physical premises and make their own arrangements for a person to officiate (minister or judge). On request, defendant may make arrangements for the services of a person to officiate. Or, defendant may perform the wedding himself.
The facts herein are readily distinguishable from those in State ex rel. Pringle v. Heritage Baptist Temple, Inc., 236 Kan. 544, 693 P.2d 1163 (1985); and State ex rel. O'Sullivan v. Heart Ministries, Inc., 227 Kan. 244, 607 P.2d 1102 (1980), where licensure of a church-operated day-care center and a children's boarding home, respectively, were at issue.
Through criminal charges the State is attempting to punish an ordained minister (and deter him and other ministers from future like conduct) for refusing to perform the marriage sacrament for particular couples when said refusal was based upon the minister's sincere personal religious beliefs. It is not the function of the courts to determine what is or is not the correct interpretation of the biblical passages relied upon for such beliefs. The parties have not cited, nor has our research revealed, a single case from any jurisdiction within the United States where criminal prosecution of a minister has been attempted under even remotely comparable circumstances. Refusal of a minister, personally to perform a marriage, is not a life-threatening situation which might compel a court's intervention in what is otherwise a "hands off" constitutionally protected area.
The trial court dismissed the criminal charges herein on the *153 basis that K.S.A. 21-4003 was unconstitutional as applied to defendant under the circumstances herein.
As stated in U.S.D. No. 503 v. McKinney, 236 Kan. 224, 689 P.2d 860 (1984):
The reasoning behind these well-established rules of statutory construction was stated in State v. Smiley, 65 Kan. 240, 69 Pac. 199 (1902), as follows:
If K.S.A. 21-4003(1)(d) were intended by the legislature to include an ordained minister's refusal to perform religious sacraments within the term "personal or professional services," then the statute would be constitutionally invalid. We must presume the legislature did not intend such a result. We, therefore, conclude said statute was not intended to apply, and does *154 not apply, to an ordained minister's refusal, based upon his religious beliefs, to perform a wedding ceremony; and that the trial court did not err in dismissing the criminal charges herein.
The judgment is affirmed.
HOLMES, J., not participating.
HERD, J., concurs in result.