Church refuses to marry black couple

[mariowie]

Church refuses to marry black couple

A Mississippi couple claims they were not allowed to get married in the Southern Baptist church they attend because they are black.

According to WLBT television in Jackson, Miss., Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson had already printed and sent out invitations to their wedding at First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs when their pastor called with some bad news.

"The church congregation had decided no black could be married at that church and that if he went on to marry her, then they would vote him out the church," Charles Wilson told the NBC affiliate.

First thought that is racist, second thought that aint christian either.

A sad thing for such a thing to happen, your marriage all planned and the day before you get
a call that it can't happen in the church you want to have it :c.

 

[Therian]

Church refuses to marry black couple

A Mississippi couple claims they were not allowed to get married in the Southern Baptist church they attend because they are black.

According to WLBT television in Jackson, Miss., Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson had already printed and sent out invitations to their wedding at First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs when their pastor called with some bad news.

"The church congregation had decided no black could be married at that church and that if he went on to marry her, then they would vote him out the church," Charles Wilson told the NBC affiliate.

First thought that is racist, second thought that aint christian either.

A sad thing for such a thing to happen, your marriage all planned and the day before you get
a call that it can't happen in the church you want to have it :c.

This is such a tough one. We can all agree that racism is wrong, and that it is morally repugnant to not allow this couple to marry. But then you can't force the church to marry them because if you do you set a precedent for the LGBT lobby to exploit, and soon you will see church's forced by to go against their values. Saying that I'd love for them to explain why they didn't accept the couple. As the OP said, it's not very Christian, the bible does forbid LGBT weddings, but there is no such law in the bible about black marriage, so I don't see what excuse they can use other than just being outright racists.

 

[Ghetsis-Dennis]

The fact that it takes place in the Mississipi explains it all, because it's a southern state, where racial discrimination and segregation use to take place.

 

[Bikini Miltank]

This is such a tough one. We can all agree that racism is wrong, and that it is morally repugnant to not allow this couple to marry. But then you can't force the church to marry them because if you do you set a precedent for the LGBT lobby to exploit, and soon you will see church's forced by to go against their values. Saying that I'd love for them to explain why they didn't accept the couple. As the OP said, it's not very Christian, the bible does forbid LGBT weddings, but there is no such law in the bible about black marriage, so I don't see what excuse they can use other than just being outright racists.

It's not a tough one at all. We're dealing with a church so backward and bigoted that its congregation voted to forbid black people from getting married there. Do you really think that if they were made to allow it, gay marriage would somehow just slip in there? That's a nice thought, but given that gay marriage is illegal in the state and looked upon very differently by most churches, there is absolutely zero chance of it happening.

Also: the Bible mentions LGBT marriage zero times.

 

[Therian]

This is such a tough one. We can all agree that racism is wrong, and that it is morally repugnant to not allow this couple to marry. But then you can't force the church to marry them because if you do you set a precedent for the LGBT lobby to exploit, and soon you will see church's forced by to go against their values. Saying that I'd love for them to explain why they didn't accept the couple. As the OP said, it's not very Christian, the bible does forbid LGBT weddings, but there is no such law in the bible about black marriage, so I don't see what excuse they can use other than just being outright racists.

It's not a tough one at all. We're dealing with a church so backward and bigoted that its congregation voted to forbid black people from getting married there. Do you really think that if they were made to allow it, gay marriage would somehow just slip in there? That's a nice thought, but given that gay marriage is illegal in the state and looked upon very differently by most churches, there is absolutely zero chance of it happening.

Also: the Bible mentions LGBT marriage zero times.

I think I may have come across wrong. I'm saying that a reactionary response would be for the government to force them to allow the black couple to marry in that church. But then when you sit and think about it, that would set a precedent of the government being able to interfere with the affairs of the church which I don't think should be allowed. The LGBT point was an example of a group that then would be able to make use of this precedent for its purposes.

 

[mariowie]

Well I don't think the goverment should get involved in this, instead the church should think from it's religous point of view why a black couple shouldn't marry in there church.
When they would have done that they would just get married, but now they are just a bunch of hyporcite people.
People who praise the love of Christ and then don't share that love with a couple just because they are of a different color :s.

 

[mwetwe]

Well although the government shouldent get involved, the couple refused marrige rights have every reason to complain to the police. It is quite sad that some southern states may not take action though, youd think most of america would have stopped inequality now.

The priests should really resign... I mean they are obviously not the best people for the job. If they cant follow the bible, in which their job relys on, they shouldent have the right to be a priest. I think of religious people as rolemodels....

 

[Bandit Keith]

Mississippi:America's most socially and politically backwards state.(They didn't ratify the 13th amendment until March 16, 1995.)


It's about time that the US Government cracks down on them for defiance of the US Constitutional Amendments, for being racist, sexist, homophobic, ignorant, religiously slanted towards the Southern Baptist Church in every way, and generally a nuisance to the USA at large. Get over the Civil War already!

 

[Vhazhiphor]

This doesn't sound like anything religious at all, actually. Rather than face the "vocal minority", as he calls it, the pastor decided it was best to keep the "flock" happy and keep his position than to do what was right. Isn't the pastor supposed to guide the sheep? Not the other way around?

Churches are more politics and cliques than religion, in my experience. Can't say that I'm surprised.

 

[Goodbye Blue Monday]

First of all, there's no "LGBT lobby" (what is this, a new term for "gay agenda"?) that wants to force themselves into other people's churches, so just stop with that crap right now. (Also, you should probably review the site rules re: discussing that topic.)

(Also, what even is "LGBT marriage"? Bisexual people are attracted to more than one gender so if they're marrying some of the opposite one, that's not illegal anywhere. And with trans* people, they are of all sexual orientations since that's a completely separate issue from gender identity.)

But while it's abhorrent that there are churches in this day and age where views like this still prevail (since this was decided on by a congregation who forced it on their pastor, not one person), Therian is right that it is their right under the First Amendment to turn away anyone they want from getting married in their church. They're not violating any laws. Legalizing a particular form of marriage (interracial marriage, same-sex marriage, being able to marry after a divorce, etc.) simply means that the state can perform and recognize those unions and they get all the legal benefits associated with them, but the government cannot tell churches how to conduct their ceremonies. Same-sex marriage is legal in some states, but churches opposed to it can still refuse to perform those ceremonies. Divorce and remarriage are legal across the U.S., but some churches (such as many Catholic churches) won't marry people who have been previously married because they don't recognize their divorces. The state sees it as a needless infringement on religious rights since those people can find another place of worship that will perform their wedding, or get married in front of a justice of the peace who is required to do so. It's the same deal here.

If you follow the history of how interracial marriage became law across the land, this was frequently pointed out to people back then who - similar to same-sex marriage opponents today - tried to rile people up against it by suggesting it would force their churches to marry Black people, even though that was incorrect. It's still incorrect, it's just not much of an issue these days because most people - and their churches with them - aren't that blatantly bigoted with regard to race. (Not that racism doesn't still exist - it does - but there's less of it, and certainly people can't get away with being that obviously, openly racist as they once could.) Hopefully, attitudes toward same-sex marriage will follow a similar path.

 

[Xenidal]

What kind of church is run so that the congregation can "vote out" the pastor? I'm not familiar with that religion so maybe it's common, but that in itself just seems strange to me.

Anyway, to me the article (unless I completely misread it) doesn't indicate any racism on the pastor's part. All it says is that some members of the church (which he had no control over, obviously) were racist and did not want a black couple married there, so the pastor figured it would be better for the couple to be married somewhere else rather than risk those racists possibly ruining the wedding day for the couple. He was not complying with the racist members and joining in on the racism... he did it because it was best for the couple. It's not at all fair, and certainly an inconvenience, but I don't think his intentions were bad at all (unless of course, the couple objected and he still refused to marry them, but there's no indication of that in the article)

 

[Goodbye Blue Monday]

My dad is a Presbyterian minister and in every church he's been in, the pastor is essentially employed by the congregation (since they're the ones who choose to hire him/her) and thus is often beholden to what they want to do for a lot of things, much more so than the other way around. And so they can vote out pastors if they do things that they don't want them to do. This is the way it is in most Protestant denominations that have a larger hierarchy around them. That wouldn't be the case in a non-denominational church where the pastor was the one who basically started the church and is calling all the shots.

I'm not sure why the minister would have to approve each individual person they marry in the church, though, with the congregation or even the session committee (a small group of laypeople who work with the minister to run the church, and essentially are the "voice" of the congregation), but a) I don't exactly keep up with what happens in my dad's session meetings and b) the Presbyterian Church USA is not the Southern Baptist Church and most churches in both denominations are not this racist. Maybe in this particular church they did because they had this rule that they wouldn't have Black couples married in it.

Anyway, I'm not sure why the pastor of this church couldn't perform their wedding somewhere else. My dad does a lot of private weddings for people who aren't members of his church but know him outside of it and want him performing the ceremony, and always has. Of course, maybe the congregation could still vote him out if he did that. Again, not sure of the fine details here.

 

[Jay0173]

Just one thought: Is there truly anyone really surprised that there are people out there who are prejudiced against blacks?

 

[PockyAddict]

As a Black woman from the south, I'm tottally not surprised at this, some (not all of them) small town churches like the ones this couple was gonna get married go to are some of the most bigoted and homophobic ish ever.

And also my homestate was the last to allow interacial marrage if i can recall correctly which is kinda sad.

 

[Kouzan]

Though discrimination against Blacks isn't as prominent as it was 50 or 40 years ago, it's not surprising this happened in a Southern state who are still highly prejudiced people. Though it's definitely not very Christ-like, the way Christians are told to act, but very expected.

 

[Goodbye Blue Monday]

Just one thought: Is there truly anyone really surprised that there are people out there who are prejudiced against blacks?

I think a lot of White people in the U.S. like to pretend that racism is no longer an issue because it's protected against in the laws, yes. Which is obviously much easier to do when you're not the target of the continuing social/cultural racism, as Whites generally aren't compared to other racial groups (including Blacks) in the U.S.

 

[Jay0173]

Though discrimination against Blacks isn't as prominent as it was 50 or 40 years ago, it's not surprising this happened in a Southern state who are still highly prejudiced people. Though it's definitely not very Christ-like, the way Christians are told to act, but very expected.

What was the quote from Gandhi?

I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.

 

[Garren]

Gandhi didn't like black people either, though.

 

[Therian]

First of all, there's no "LGBT lobby"

Really, then what is the correct term for lobbyists who lobby for LGBT issues? Groups like stonewall etc?

Personally, I am in favour of the state performing Same Sex Marriage ceremonies and any religion or Church which wishes too as well, I am not religious, but I do feel very pasionately about freedom of religion, and while I personally would be fine were gay marriage to be legalised here in the UK for example, I wouldn't want it forced on churches is all I'm saying.

It relates to this because like I said, and you agreed, obviously I'm not racist, and obviously I think what this congregation did is absolutely appalling, my point was that my first reaction would be to force them to perform the marriage, but then it opens the doors for the LGBT Lobby (lobbyists who lobby for lgbt issues) to demand the state forces churches to accept their marriages too.

 

[Goodbye Blue Monday]

Gandhi didn't like black people either, though.

And what is your source for this claim?

First of all, there's no "LGBT lobby"

Really, then what is the correct term for lobbyists who lobby for LGBT issues? Groups like stonewall etc?

If that's really what you meant, you could have phrased it in a way that did sound so much like "the gay agenda" and coupled by stuff about how LGBT marriage is against the Bible (even though, as @Bikini Miltank; mentioned the Bible doesn't say anything about same-sex marriage and also "LGBT marriage" is not actually a thing).

Also, your whole argument - "They're right about this but if we let them be right the LGBTs will use this to their advantage!" - rests on the assumption that homophobia is somehow not as bad as racism, which is bullshit. Plus, if we're going based on "but the Bible says," it's not that hard to find Bible verses to support racism as well, as any segregationist will tell you. As Shakespeare said, "even the devil can quote scripture to suit his purpose."