Church bans interracial couples (This post has been UPDATED as the church has overturned the ban)

Most of you who know me well know I’m a proud church going gal. But it never fails that at least once a month (usually once a week) there’s some story in the news making Christians seem like backward-thinking hatemongers. And here’s the latest case in point from The Raw Story:

A small church in Pike County, Kentucky has voted to ban interracial couples from  most church activities “to promote greater unity among the church body.”

Melvin Thompson, former pastor of Gulnare Freewill Baptist church, proposed the ban after Stella Harville brought her fiance, Ticha Chikuni, to services in June. Harville, who goes by the name Suzie, played the piano while Chikuni sang.

Harville is white and her fiance, a native of Zimbabwe, is black. Church members recently voted 9-6 in favor of Thompson’s proposed ban (with others attending the business meeting refusing to take a stand on the issue). The resolution states that interracial couples can’t be members or help with worship services or most other church functions and declares “That the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church does not condone interracial marriage.”


Harville’s reaction: “It sure ain’t Christian,” she said. “It ain’t nothing but the old devil working.”


Amen. 

Stacy Stepp, pastor of the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church in Pike County, told The Associated Press that the vote by nine people last week was declared null and void after it was determined that new bylaws can’t run contrary to local, state or national laws. He said the proposal was discriminatory, therefore it couldn’t be adopted.