Ky. church's ban on interracial couples voided

A November 2010 photo of Stella Harville and her fiance, Ticha Chikuni, in Richmond, Ky. Stella's childhood church in Pike County, Kentucky, the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church, voted to ban interracial couples from becoming members at the church after the pair sang a song during a visit to the church over the summer. / AP Photo/Stella Harville

PIKEVILLE, Ky. - A Baptist congregation's vote to ban interracial couples from membership has been declared null and void by a church conference.

Members of the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church in Pike County had voted to ban interracial couples after Stella Harville came to services with her fiance, Ticha Chikuni, who is from Zimbabwe. The two met at Georgetown College.

About one-third of the church's members voted last week, 9-6, to ban membership to interracial couples.

CBS Affiliate WYMT obtained a copy of the resolution, which states that "the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church does not condone interracial marriage. Parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they be used in worship services and other church functions, with the exception being funerals. All are welcome to our public worship services. This recommendation is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve."

Harville told WYMT correspondent Angela Sparkman, "It's just a travesty, especially of Christianity, that this church feels this way. They've crossed the line in revoking my fiance and mine's right to worship in a public place. It hurts even more that I have attended this church ever since I was a baby."

Chikuni is originally from Zimbabwe but has lived in the United States for 11 years. "He just has one of the kindest hearts for God, and then this is happening," said Harville. "People who have backwards way of thinking, they should know that their racism actions should not and will not be tolerated."

Pastor Stacy Stepp - who said he opposed the policy - asked for help from the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists, comprised of more than a dozen member churches.

WYMT reports that the Conference met on Saturday and declared the interracial ban was invalid.

"No motion is in order that conflicts with the laws of the nation or state or with the assembly's constitution of by-laws. And if such motion is adopted, even by a unanimous vote, it is null and void," said Jim Patton, the pastor at Pikeville Freewill Baptist Church and a member of the Sandy Valley Conference.

"We believe that everyone is welcome in the house of God, and we are not a racist group of people," said Bobby Mullins, pastor at Martin County Free Will Baptist Church, told WYMT correspondent Jerrika Insco.

"I don't believe it's right. People should be able to worship. I don't care what color their skin is," one Bowling Fork churchgoer told WYMT.

The Harville family said they have no hard feelings.

"My daughter is doing good on this," said Dean Harville, father of Stella Harville, and a member of Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church.

"She's moving forward. It's time to get it behind us. She's doing okay,"

The Harvilles say they are ready for their church to get back to normal, allowing all people of all races to attend.

[splashy79]

I'm happy to read that the Pastor was not happy about it. At least he knew it was wrong.

Too many of the right wing Christians follow Paul (who never knew Jesus and was a "converted" tax collector) and the Old Testament - not enough follow Jesus, the Christ. I don't know why they call themselves Christians. They should call themselves Paulians or something similar.

[ReckonedTruth]

Jesus Christ was the biggest Socialist that ever walked this planet.. a person we on this planet we can never escape his truth to love all people and have tolerance of all within the rights that God set before all humanity..

HATE kills..prejudice kills, racism kills,..intolerance KILLS..

What this church did was to exposed their fraudulent nature of deception in their doctrine of who- Jesus Christ truly was.. if any one doesn't know primarily the confedrate States today, STILL have JIM CROW LAWS on the books and are followed as such..

These people are SHAMELESS before GOD.. so the idea is this- if this interracial couple didn't ask to be married in this church.. then the church doctrine what have stood as such.. and how many non-whites attend this church? And did they KNOW such a doctrine exist within this church? Probably NOT! So now this church want to change the doctrine? Hypocrites..so in other words if this church weren't exposed for their Jim Crow doctrine.. the doctrine would have remained as it was..


Simply amazing that on the eve of 2012.. WE AS AMERICANS have to STILL deal with this MADNESS.. sheer insanity..race based idiocy!

So what color is Love? A color we have yet to see.. because it's colorless.

[amerilatino]

Friedrich Nietzsche said God was dead, well, maybe not every God, the Southern Baptist one is crashing at a friend's in a trailer park. Strung out on meth, hiding from a parole violation on a restraining order put up by his pretty, 16 year-old second cousin, trading EBT withdrawals for beer and blaming it all on Mexicans.

[Skruffy1]

This is a perfect example of why a true, direct democracy isn't necessarily a good thing. In many constituencies, large and small, if policies were determined only by a majority of voters and nothing else, consequences could be really bad. Fortunately in this case the final decision was NOT left to the bigots of the local congregation to decide directly.

[formerusmcsgt1]

This recommendation is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity....
----
Promoting unity through exclusion?

No wonder these morons believe in invisible beings who live in invisible places.....

[longtree-2009]

those people don't know their bible, their christian bible. in their bible jesus is described and he is far from being white, being anglo. there is something unusual about christians across the board, for instance why are there so many denominations if they all claim to follow the bible? the muslims, on the other hand, only have two sects if recall is correct and those two are sunni and shia. shia being mostly in iran. there is a small subset of sunni but very small. all of the muslims follow their koran. christians have so many sects all over the world. interesting all.

[Hutterite]

Is there any chance that people make stuff up and try and attach it to gods' name for legitimacy? Could that have happened in this case, and if so what other instances could this devious method have been employed in? Is organised religion truly an expression and servant of the lord, or a scam/con game/sideshow act of man? Should it be heavily involved in politics today? It is, and it should not.

[Jaylah54]

Maybe "promote greater unity among" bigots. But that's about all.

And unless there were a whole lot of typos in the quotes from Stella Harville, she sorta sounds like she dropped out of school in the third grade. Although I don't suppose folks that would pass a ban on interracial marriage figure girls need anymore than a third grade education, either.

[thehomelessguy]

The word "ban" should not exist in any church vocabulary, in any form, for any reason, whatsoever.

[Wookiee-1138]

People like to think that with the exception of Appalachian Yokels and Redneck Texans and those Westboro freaks still living in the dark ages, we live in an enlightened time of religious tolerance.

But even here in the progressive Upper Midwest, there are problems. As recently as my confirmation classes in the late '90s they showed us the now-infamous "God Makers" anti-mormon propaganda video. (aka. the "Mormon Jesus" video thats circulating the internet and being compared to Scientology). I can only hope that them showing us that was completely unauthorized by the ELCA. Otherwise, I'd feel awkward going back to that church.