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.

Before stepping down as pastor in August, Thompson told Harville that
her fiance could not sing at the church again. Harville is white and
Chikuni, a native of Zimbabwe, is black.

Last Sunday, church members voted 9-6 in favor of Thompson’s proposed
ban. Others attending the church business meeting declined to take a
stand on the issue.

“That the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church does not condone interracial
marriage,” the resolution states, according to WKYT.

“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 The Kentucky Herald-Leader that the decision is an
embarrassment to God, the church and the whole community.

“It sure ain’t Christian,” she explained. “It ain’t nothing but the
old devil working.”

Harville and Chikuni plan to marry in July, but they won’t be tying
the knot in Pike County.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared anti-miscegenation laws
unconstitutional in a 1967 decision. By 2005, Stanford University
sociologist Michael Rosenfeld determined that 7 percent of all
marriages in the U.S. were interracial.