There's at least one "so-called" church on the internet that ordains anyone to be a minister for a small fee of like $20. I figure if you can pay $20 they'll probably ordain your robot too!

[rant] Now me personally think it's an abomination to do such a thing, but in man's world anything goes, right? I mean the fact that ordaining can be had for a small fee already is like laughing at God. Holy matrimony should be just that, holy, not a joke to be gawked and mocked at by the masses. A wedding should be sober, solemn and serious business. If a wedding is really to be between two people and God then this would definitely not be appropriate to do the wedding in that light. But, if you throw all of that out, then sure it's perfectly ok to do that! If God doesn't matter, then why not marry a robot too? You could even have a robot minister that marries two robots! But wait, what if the robots were transgender or had no gender, what then? It doesn't matter! For that matter, why even get married? I know, a pointless rant. No one is listening. [/rant]

Other than that, I think it's interesting that someone really wants to have a robot be their minister. Now my guess is the robot just has a hard-coded program to do the service. But, wouldn't it be interesting if you could create some sort of AI where you convince the robot that it really is a minister and watch it live out a lie? What would it do if it were a minister? Would it preach hell fire and brimstone, or would it preach love and forgiveness? Could it even understand Salvation and preach it? Could it really understand and perform a wedding service? Of course we are no where near that sort of AI software, but one could imagine what could become of a robot minister if it were possible! Enlightening to say the least! Would it be good or bad? What could it teach us? Seems like it could make a good movie! Robo-Almighty!

There's at least one entity on the 'net that will ordain you for free. A very dear friend asked if I'd officiate at her upcoming wedding, and I gleefully accepted. So, now I'm (at least for the purposes of the aforementioned event), "Rev. Jeff". An abasement? Perhaps, but unless they change the law it's the only way I can do it, and it's perfectly legal.

"A wedding should be sober, solemn and serious business." - Well, my own wedding was certainly serious, but it was neither of the other two items you mentioned. And it was held in -gasp- a museum!

Different strokes for different folks, my good friend. (To answer your two final points - No, your rant was not pointless at all. And yes, we listen.)

Cool. Is your reverendhood with any particular religion, denomination, or sect? Church of the subgenius perhaps? :) I wonder if they can perform weddings.

Don't forget that sea captains and civil authorities also perform weddings. Anyway a Korean wedding would normally be Confucian or Buddhist wouldn't it? I seem to remember something about geese being required too, so why not robots.

And, if you're interested in religious robots, Clifford Simak wrote quite a few novels on the subject. Of course, in the novels, the robots were fully conscious entities, unlike Tiro, so they could be just as religious as any human.

No, my reverendship is not with any specific religion. I found two online sites that offer free ordination, and I went with the one that seemed to have symbols from just about every religion. (It's the Universal Life Church Monastery - over 20 million ordained ministers since 1959!).

I also found a site that listed the requirements for marriage officiation according to each state's laws - many states have different requirements, which were interesting to read.

As for our own wedding, we hired a Justice o' The Peace, who did a fine job. Our eight year anniversary is next month!

Happy anniversary! I googled Universal Life Church Monastery and came up with this site. I love the link that says "Instant absolution of sin, click here"... :)