Being a Southerner, I am well aware that it’s often the case that for every ten miles you drive out of a city, you go back at least one decade in critical thinking skills and the ability to interpret the world around you. Oh, and racism. Lots of it. There are certainly lots of people in these parts who quietly still aren’t really very happy about Loving v. Virginia, not that they could actually name the Supreme Court case that lifted bans on interracial marriage. But this one’s new to me: a church in Mississippi forced a black couple to move their wedding because some of the white church members were uncomfortable with a black couple marrying there. First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, enjoy your moment of being a national laughingstock:
A predominantly white church in Mississippi has refused to marry a couple because they are black.
Just two days before their scheduled wedding, Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson were forced to change venues after the Rev. Stan Weatherford told them that some church members were uncomfortable with the black couple getting married in the First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs.
“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,” said Charles Wilson,WLBT-TV in Jackson reports.
Insiders say five or six members went to Weatherford after seeing the couple’s wedding rehearsal the Thursday night before their Saturday wedding, the Clarion Ledger reports.
Weatherford said he was surprised by the reaction of some church members.
“I didn’t want to have a controversy within the church, and I didn’t want a controversy to affect the wedding of Charles and Te’Andrea. I wanted to make sure their wedding day was a special day,” Weatherford told WLBT-TV.
I really want to hear the reasoning from the church members themselves. Seriously. Please explain yourselves. We’re popping popcorn as we await your sound logic and reasoning. Here’s what makes it worse:
Wilson said he had been attending the church for about a month and his new wife had been attending for more than a year. His wife’s father also attended the church, and her uncle was custodian at the church, the Ledger reports.
They were actually going to church there! It would be awful enough if the couple weren’t congregants there but had chosen the church for their wedding and were informed that they couldn’t marry there due to the color of their skin, but they were going to church there! My god.
The church is holding internal meetings to decide out how it should respond to future wedding requests by black couples, WLBT-TV reports.
MEETINGS?! The church is holding “meetings” to figure out what to do about blacks in the future? This is all so…the South.
Ugh. We progressive Southerners do continue to gently encourage our more racist, bigoted neighbors to please kindly enter the 21st Century, as we are very tired of having to explain you to the rest of the civilized world.
