Minister Of Religion Affirms Director General Of Islamic Guidance And Nonislam Has Discussed KUA Regulations For All Religions

The photo archive - Minister of Religion Yaqut Cholil Qoumas when answering media questions in Jakarta. (ANTARA/Putri Hanifa)

JAKARTA - Minister of Religion Yaqut Cholil Qoumas believes that the proposal to make the Office of Religious Affairs (KUA) a place for marriage of all religions will get the support of many parties.

"The Ministry of Religion is the ministry of all religions, so KUA (hopefully) can also provide religious services to non-Muslim religious communities," said the Minister of Religion in a statement quoted by ANTARA, Monday, February 26.

The idea to make KUA a place for the wedding of all religious communities was raised by the Minister of Religion when he opened the National Working Meeting of the Directorate General of Islamic Community Guidance in Jakarta.

The proposal is considered to provide convenience for religious people in carrying out marriages.

"We want to make the KUA to be used by all of our religious brothers and sisters to carry out the marriage process. Because the KUA is a storefront of the Ministry of Religion," said the Minister of Religion.

In order for this plan to be realized, the Minister of Religion asked his staff to examine how to realize it. Yaqut also ensured that he would involve all policy makers in the review of the proposal, including religious leaders

"This is the idea that we made to immediately follow up. Yesterday all the director-general, starting from the Director-General of Islamic Community Guidance and all the Director-General of Non-Islamic Community Guidance, have all been met. They have started to talk about the mechanism, the regulations, everything is discussed," he said.

Meanwhile, MPR Chairman Bambang Soesatyo (Bamsoet) asked the Ministry of Religion (Kemenag) to optimize the plan to develop the function of the Office of Religious Affairs (KUA) as a marriage registration place for all religions.

"Ask the government, in this case the Ministry of Religion, to optimize the plan to build the function of the KUA as a place to record the marriage of all these religions, especially in terms of integrating marriage and divorce data so that it can be done better," said Bambang.

In addition to optimizing the policy plan, he also asked the Ministry of Religion to socialize this to the public so that it can be fully understood.