LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A tiny all-white Appalachian church in rural Kentucky has voted to ban interracial couples from joining its flock, pitting members against one another in an argument over race.
Members at the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church voted Sunday on the resolution, which says the church “does not condone interracial marriage.” The church member who crafted the resolution, Melvin Thompson, said he is not racist and called the matter an “internal affair.”
Church secretary Dean Harville disagrees: He says the resolution came after his daughter visited the church this summer with her boyfriend from Africa. Stella Harville and Ticha Chikuni — now her fiance — sang a song for the congregation.
Stella Harville, a 24-year-old graduate student at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana, called the vote “hurtful.”
