A small church in Pike County, Kentucky, USA, 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.