Funeral celebrant out for commentary two celebrants he considered outstanding, Brian McInerney and Rick Barclay. International acknowledgment was provided by a comprehensive article in Time Magazine (September 2004) reporting that in the "liberal" cities of Melbourne (Australia) and Auckland (New Zealand) civil celebrants "conduct substantially more than half of the funerals." It reported that before 1973 only clergy funerals were available to the general public in Australia and New Zealand. The article describes celebrant funerals as "intimate and personalised". But it also cited an alternative point of view by atheist sociologist Mira Crouch who stated that celebrant funerals were "mawkish and sentimental".
Humanist celebrant on who can perform legal marriages. Naming ceremonies, similarly, can be held anywhere without legal implications. In countries where legal marriages can only be performed by religious institutions or the state (such as England), humanist weddings are often performed before or after a civil legal proceeding, but presented as the more meaningful or significant of the two events. As of 2018, humanist celebrants can conduct legally binding marriage ceremonies in Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and the United States. The British island of Jersey legalised humanist marriages in 2018, but the civil service