Request By:
Honorable Billy G. Hudson
Caldwell County Judge/Executive
Princeton, Kentucky 42445
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You ask what would be a valid form to be used by county judge/executives in issuing licenses to ministers and priests to solemnize marriages in Kentucky, pursuant to KRS 402.060.
We are enclosing a copy of OAG 74-759 in which we concluded that KRS 402.060 implicitly intends that a formal license document be issued to those ministers and priests who qualify. Because of statutory changes subsequent to that opinion, we find it necessary to update or extend it.
First, only the county judge/executive is authorized under KRS 402.060 to issue such licenses.
Next, while the statute [KRS 402.060] does not prescribe any definite form of license, it does require a formal document indicating that pursuant to that statute the county judge/executive has granted to the therein minister or priest, as a resident of his county, or as a person serving as a minister or priest in a place of worship in that Kentucky county, a license to solemnize marriages in Kentucky. Further, the license document should recite that the licensee has satisfied the county judge/executive that he (or she, as the case may be) is a person of good moral character and in regular communion with his religious society, and that he has made proper bond as required by law.
Finally, a license can be issued by the county judge/executive by way of an executive order, containing the above essential data, the original of which, along with the bond, must be kept on record in the county clerk's office. The licensee, if he wishes, can then obtain a certified copy of the executive order for his personal use. See