Mississippi church refuses to marry black couple!

[LemonTurd]

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19047475 Bloody hell], this is 2012!

Oops, link

Sorry, I couldn't quite believe my eyes, so I googled for more information and you are absolutely right. Some of the white congregation didn't want a black couple to marry in their church. And the pastor kowtowed to their racism.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9436486/Mississippi-church-turns-black-couple-away-who-wanted-to-marry.html

That is truely awful. I feel that pastor should have stood up for the couple and married couple in his church.

The article doesn't say much about it

Disgraceful.

Especially as the only congregant directly said that most of the congregation had no problem with it. So why are a handful of un-Christian-minded bigots holding such sway? Why isn't the pastor sticking to the proper Christian messages?

It didn't say why though

possibly not because of their colour then.

I think the pastor just had a total failure to think. He seems to have got as far as "Oh dear, a few people have said that they'll make a nasty fuss if this lovely couple get married in church X. We can't be having their day ruined can we - let's move it to church Y." He still did the ceremony, but he didn't think about the wider implications at all.

This is the problem with the First Amendment and the right to free speech of course - if somebody has declared their intentions to be utterly vile there's not a lot you can do to stop them.

"Pastor Stan Weatherford, who is white, said: "This had never been done before here, so it was setting a new precedent, and there are those who reacted to it because of that."

There's no "it" offered in the article except race. So either that's the world's worst out-of-context quote or the reason was race.

Sounds like a small number of the congregation were aware of the fact that a black couple had never been married in the church and 'didn't want to set a precedent' - WTAF!

So they don't mind having black people attend their church for worship but they don't allow them to marry?

Read the other link, this is disgusting! In this day and age can't believe this is happening!

I read things like this and just find it impossible to comprehend.
I know it happens, I know this is true, I just can not get my head round it at all.

Appauling

I'm an atheist, but part of me would like there to be a God so that these so-called 'Christians' will get their come-uppance.

Seems there are plenty of people in the Southern States who would like to go back to the 1960s when black people were sent to the back of the bus and denied education. Essentially that part of the US was operating a system of apartheid - but no-one ever calls it that.

Actually some of my South African friends do describe 1960s US segregation as apartheid. They recognise it when they see it.

I could NEVER imagine this happening in a church the UK. To my mind, it it so culturally out of context, it is really difficult to fathom.

I can picture a small group "running" the church with little reference to the rest of the congegation, and with the power to sack the preacher.

I've seen other groups that end up being run like that. It can sometimes be very difficult to shift the group with the power. The church might or might not have a constitution that requires election of the church elders and has scope for booting them out.

You're right, PigletJohn about small groups of unpleasant people having a lot of sway. My ILs live in the US and they ended up leaving their church because the elders refused to allow a community group for learning disabled people to use the church's rooms for meetings - on the grounds that it would give 'the wrong impression', when what they meant was 'we don't like retards'. This group would have been paying, just like any other group.

My FIL was a church elder at the time, one of a minority who stood up for what was right. He gave them all a piece of his mind, made sure it got into all the local papers and then when the rest still refused to do the right thing, he left. My ILs were good people.

The church IS the churchgoers, surely?

Caramelwaffle- they refuse to marry homosexual couples in church here, is it so different?

Good point frida.

I was thinking more along the lines of Race. However, it is similar as you say.

absolute disgrace - and they found out the day before their wedding !!

what a marvellous ad for the church

I really want to contact that church and tell them that Jesus wasn't you know white

"they refuse to marry homosexual couples in church here, is it so different?"

Well, yes because the bible (I think!) states that marriage is between a man and a woman (which isn't to say it is right just hat it is understandable given the teaching in the bible). AFAIK the bible doesn't discriminate on colour does it? Jesus wasn't white after all.

a member of the First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, said she and most of the congregation were "ashamed" at their church's refusal to marry a black couple, and that they had known nothing about it.

At least it was apparently only a minority that were racist twats.