Kentucky church bans interracial marriage

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

A small Kentucky church has chosen to ban marriages and even some worship services for interracial couples. The Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church, located in Pike County, made the vote in response to a longtime member who is engaged to a man whose birthplace is in Zimbabwe.

Other pastoral leaders in the area were quick to denounce the church's vote. "It's not the spirit of the community in any way, shape or form," Randy Johnson, president of the Pike County Ministerial Association, told the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The small congregation, which usually hosts about 40 members each Sunday, held the vote after longtime member Stella Harville, brought her fiancé Ticha Chikuni to church with her in June. The couple performed a song together at the church in which Chikuni sang "I Surrender All," while Harville played the piano.

Chikuni, 29, who works at Georgetown College, is black--and Harville, who was baptized at the church but is not an active member, is white. Dean Harville, Stella's father, said he was told by the church's former pastor Melvin Thompson that his daughter and her fiancé were not allowed to sing at the church again. However, Thompson recently stepped down and the church's new pastor, Stacy Stepp, said the couple was once again welcome to sing.

Stepp's decision prompted Thompson to put forth a recommendation saying that while all members are welcome at the church, it does not "condone" interracial marriage, and that any interracial couples would not be received as members or allowed to participate in worship services. The only exception? Funerals.

The Harville family has formally requested the congregation to reconsider the interracial ban, and Thompson has also said he would like to resolve the issue, the area CBS affiliate WYMT has reported.

A copy of the recommendation, obtained by WYMT, reads in part:

That the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church does not condone interracial marriage. 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.

Members of the church held a vote on Thompson's proposed language, with nine voting in favor and six voting against. The other members in attendance chose not to vote.

Gawker notes that Pike County is 98 percent white and home to the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud.

The Harville family doesn't see Gulnare's new policy promoting anything like unity or civil peace. "They're the people who are supposed to comfort me in times like these," Stella Harville said.

And Stella's father was much more forceful in his denunciation of the interracial ban. "It sure ain't Christian," Dean Harville said. "It ain't nothing but the old devil working."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/kentucky-church-bans-interracial-marriage-150009470.html

[Q]

I humbly suggest a solution:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aXKI7NH27Qg/S5NNO7ulEPI/AAAAAAAAAKw/BIlCJJh0bE4/s400/church-burning.jpg

I'm getting fed up with this reactionary crap.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Just when you think some sort of slight progressive has been made in America in relation to race,this happens and reminds you how everything is a facade.

[dodger]

I humbly suggest a solution:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aXKI7NH27Qg/S5NNO7ulEPI/AAAAAAAAAKw/BIlCJJh0bE4/s400/church-burning.jpg

I'm getting fed up with this reactionary crap.

Q.....now that did make me laugh....Iwas in need of it. What a thoroughly depressing bunch of people. Vegas or Niagra....the world's their oyster...burn rubber get the hell out of that place...........

HARVILLE and CHIKUNI.....have a great wedding day!!!

[chegitz guevara]

This is in Appalachia, in an empty part of the country. Hardly representative of a country where 1 our of every 7 new marriages is interracial.

[OHumanista]

I saw this too, reactionary bullshit as usual but like it was pointed out, they are hardly significant.

Btw Q, thanks, I laughed a LOT:laugh:

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

This is in Appalachia, in an empty part of the country.

Yeah, who cares about this irrelevant little chunk of the world and it's 23,000,000 inhabitants.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Appalachian_region_of_United_States.gif

BTW, the population of Nepal is 26,000,000 and much less economically important than this area, and I'm pretty sure I remember you spending a lot of time talking about the situation there on this board and elsewhere.

[chegitz guevara]

Don't be pedantic. There's all of 65,000 people in Pike County, KY.

Oh so cosmopolitan.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yeah, the article says the county is mostly white - like the many / most of the counties in the U.S.. What's your point?

[Aurorus Ruber]

They aren't exactly rushing to combat the stereotypes regarding rural Southern people, now are they? You would think by now, forty years or so after the court cases overturning interracial marriage bans, that people would have gotten over this sort of thing. I have generally tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, but it appears that Kentucky has quite a ways to go.

[chegitz guevara]

Yeah, the article says the county is mostly white - like the many / most of the counties in the U.S.. What's your point?

I made my point in my first frigging post, which was a response to someone else. This doesn't represent America.

And so the fuck what most counties in the U.S. are mostly white? Most Americans live in 10% of the country. Half of us live in the five states biggest states.

Cities are where the vast majority of Americans live. What goes on in some backward (but I repeat myself) rural area just isn't that big a deal.

And I'm in a mixed marriage. I do find it offensive. I just don't think it represents much in this country anymore.

[Threetune]

The Song


When that I was and a little tiny boy, me daddy said to me “The time has come, me bonny, bonny bairn (http://www.answers.com/topic/bairn), To learn your A B C.”. Now Daddy was a lodge chairman in the coalfields of the Tyne, and his ABC was different from the Enid Blyton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Blyton) kind. He sang:

A is for Alienation, that made me the man that I am, and
B is the Boss who’s a Bastard, the Bourgeois (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie) who don’t give a damn,
C is for Capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism), the bosses’ reactionary creed, and
D is for Dictatorship, laddie — but the best Proletarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat) breed.
E is for Exploitation, that the workers have suffered so long, and
F is for Ludwig Feuerbach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Feuerbach), the first one to say it was wrong
G is for all Gerrymanders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering), like Lord Muck and Sir Whatsisname, and
H is the Hell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell) that they’ll go to, when the workers have kindled the flame.
I is for Imperialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism), and America’s kind is the worst, and
J is for sweetJingoism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism), that the Tories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_%28UK%29) all think of the first.
K is for good old Kier Hardie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kier_Hardie), who fought out the working class (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class) fight, and
L is for Vladimir Lenin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin), who showed him the Left (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics) was all right.
M is of course for Karl Marx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx), the mammy and the daddy of them all, and
N is for Nationalisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalisation), whtout it we’d crumble and fall
O is for Overproduction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overproduction) that capitalist economy brings and
P is for all Private Property (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property), the greatest of all of the sins.
Q is for the Quid Pro Quo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quid_pro_quo), that we’ll dish out so well and so soon, when
R for Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution) is shouted, and The Red Flag (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_red_flag#The_Red_Flag_.28words_by_Jim_Connell. 29) becomes the top tune
S is for sad Stalinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism), which gave us all such a bad name, and
T is for Trotsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky) the hero, who had to take all of the blame (poor soul)
U is the Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union) of workers, the Union will stand to the end;
V is for Vodka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodka), yes Vodka, the one drink that won’t bring the bends (http://drunkard.com/issues/02_05/02-05_on_the_cuff.htm).
W is for all Willing Workers…

…and that’s where the memory fades, ‘cos X Y and Z, me dear Daddy said, would be written on the street barricades. But now that I’m not a little tiny boy, me Daddy says to me: “Please try to forget the things I said, especially the A B C”. For Daddy’s no longer a union man, and he’s had to change his plea. His alphabet is different now, since they made him a Labour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_%28UK%29) MP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Parliament#United_Kingdom).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hardly representative of a country where 1 our of every 7 new marriages is interracial.

There should be more. ;)

[dodger]

This is in Appalachia, in an empty part of the country. Hardly representative of a country where 1 our of every 7 new marriages is interracial.

I am not sure why that quote of yours made me happy, but I am chegitz. 1 of 7 you say......yes very happy. The story is like something in a horror movie, except it is real life....certainly the couple are joining the 1 in 7, so plenty of moral support there. Whereas those grotesque christian moralists are decidedly isolated by world opinion. I thought I had reached the age where I had seen everything , heard it too, but I must say I was shocked.

CALCULATED MEAN MINDEDNESS.........in my opinion.

[Tim Cornelis]

These interracial marriage statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States#2008_Pew _Research_Center_Report_.28U.S._Census_Bureau.E2.8 0.99s_2008_American_Community_Survey.29) actually gave me hope for the future. In the 'West' of the US almost 1/4 of marriages in interracial. Hopefully, in 500 years, all races are so mixed you can't make out what race you are, then we can finally move on from this bullshit.

[Zealot]

Christians can be so fucking stupid, god they piss me off sometimes.


These interracial marriage statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States#2008_Pew _Research_Center_Report_.28U.S._Census_Bureau.E2.8 0.99s_2008_American_Community_Survey.29) actually gave me hope for the future. In the 'West' of the US almost 1/4 of marriages in interracial. Hopefully, in 500 years, all races are so mixed you can't make out what race you are, then we can finally move on from this bullshit.

ScumFront just soiled their pants.

[Impulse97]

Christians can be so fucking stupid, god they piss me off sometimes.


I see what you did there.

"Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool." -Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain

[Tim Cornelis]

ScumFront just soiled their pants.

Exactly what I was thinking. They probably see me as part of the Jewish conspiracy attempting to eradicate the white race, lol.

[KR]

There should be more. ;)
Why?

[KR]

actually gave me hope for the future. In the 'West' of the US almost 1/4 of marriages in interracial. Hopefully, in 500 years, all races are so mixed you can't make out what race you are, then we can finally move on from this bullshit.
So you want everyone to look exactly the same way?

[阿部高和]

I humbly suggest a solution:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aXKI7NH27Qg/S5NNO7ulEPI/AAAAAAAAAKw/BIlCJJh0bE4/s400/church-burning.jpg

I'm getting fed up with this reactionary crap.

For someone who (quite obviously) doesn't like Christianity, you sure have their "eye for an eye" mentality down to a T.

[Impulse97]

For someone who (quite obviously) doesn't like Christianity, you sure have their "eye for an eye" mentality down to a T.


I'm not too sure that was an eye for an eye thing, but rather 'Fuck religion, let's get rid of it entirely'.

[Ostrinski]

So you want everyone to look exactly the same way?Why not? Go fuck yourself.

[#FF0000]

So you want everyone to look exactly the same way?

man you are a dummy and you don't know how genetics works please stop posting

[xub3rn00dlex]

So you want everyone to look exactly the same way?

lol... yes. Then I can be different and special forever ever after!

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Hopefully, in 500 years, all races are so mixed you can't make out what race you are, then we can finally move on from this bullshit.

You can't "make it out now" since it's not based in biological reality but is in fact a social construct. It's totally arbitrary and based on pseudo-science in the service of the ruling classes.

[Sendo]

The thought that more mixing would create some light brown monolithic race is hilarious. As if all the black and white skin genes would disappear. My half-Sicilian father married an Anglo-Irisher and my sister and I couldn't look more dissimilar. I got all of his side's facial features but none of the darkness, yet my sister never needs sunblock.

[Zav]

The thought that more mixing would create some light brown monolithic race is hilarious. As if all the black and white skin genes would disappear. My half-Sicilian father married an Anglo-Irisher and my sister and I couldn't look more dissimilar. I got all of his side's facial features but none of the darkness, yet my sister never needs sunblock.
Skin color isn't determined by a single gene or two, but rather many, therefore more mixing will indeed create a smaller range of colors. Try mixing up some different colored paints. You'll see what I mean. People can literally have skin of any color between this and this and this now, and even after 'race' is eliminated from our language, variation will nearly always still occur because people will breed with people in their area resulting in a natural stereotypical look to people from a certain place. The less significant this is, the better. As humans, we tend to box things into categories like sex, nationality, language, religion, 'race', etcetera ad nauseum, and the fewer of these we have, the better we can make society.

[NewLeft]

The Song


When that I was and a little tiny boy, me daddy said to me “The time has come, me bonny, bonny bairn (http://www.answers.com/topic/bairn), To learn your A B C.”. Now Daddy was a lodge chairman in the coalfields of the Tyne, and his ABC was different from the Enid Blyton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Blyton) kind. He sang:


A is for Alienation, that made me the man that I am, and
B is the Boss who’s a Bastard, the Bourgeois (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie) who don’t give a damn,
C is for Capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism), the bosses’ reactionary creed, and
D is for Dictatorship, laddie — but the best Proletarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat) breed.
E is for Exploitation, that the workers have suffered so long, and
F is for Ludwig Feuerbach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Feuerbach), the first one to say it was wrong
G is for all Gerrymanders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering), like Lord Muck and Sir Whatsisname, and
H is the Hell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell) that they’ll go to, when the workers have kindled the flame.
I is for Imperialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism), and America’s kind is the worst, and
J is for sweetJingoism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism), that the Tories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_%28UK%29) all think of the first.
K is for good old Kier Hardie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kier_Hardie), who fought out the working class (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class) fight, and
L is for Vladimir Lenin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin), who showed him the Left (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics) was all right.
M is of course for Karl Marx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx), the mammy and the daddy of them all, and
N is for Nationalisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalisation), whtout it we’d crumble and fall
O is for Overproduction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overproduction) that capitalist economy brings and
P is for all Private Property (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property), the greatest of all of the sins.
Q is for the Quid Pro Quo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quid_pro_quo), that we’ll dish out so well and so soon, when
R for Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution) is shouted, and The Red Flag (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_red_flag#The_Red_Flag_.28words_by_Jim_Connell. 29) becomes the top tune
S is for sad Stalinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism), which gave us all such a bad name, and
T is for Trotsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky) the hero, who had to take all of the blame (poor soul)
U is the Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union) of workers, the Union will stand to the end;
V is for Vodka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodka), yes Vodka, the one drink that won’t bring the bends (http://drunkard.com/issues/02_05/02-05_on_the_cuff.htm).
W is for all Willing Workers…


…and that’s where the memory fades, ‘cos X Y and Z, me dear Daddy said, would be written on the street barricades. But now that I’m not a little tiny boy, me Daddy says to me: “Please try to forget the things I said, especially the A B C”. For Daddy’s no longer a union man, and he’s had to change his plea. His alphabet is different now, since they made him a Labour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_%28UK%29) MP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Parliament#United_Kingdom).


We'll just say that X is for expropriation. Y and Z are no longer letters.

[Zostrianos]

Here's the news report on this:

ocd_wXjurt4

[KR]

man you are a dummy and you don't know how genetics works please stop posting
When goti123 says "Hopefully, in 500 years, all races are so mixed you can't make out what race you are" he implies he wants people to look wery similar.

[阿部高和]

Hopefully, in 500 years, all races are so mixed you can't make out what race you are, then we can finally move on from this bullshit.

1) Humanity has been mixed for thousands of years;

2.) that mentality is just as juvenile as the mentality that we should keep all races pure.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Part of me thinks "hey, who cares what this guy says, he's a caricature of himself." You can find pastors saying all sorts of dumb shit in isolated parts of the USA ... while I found Q's post amusing I do tent to think that these folks tend to be more of an embarrassment and a liability to themselves than a threat to society. It's like when you have four illierate klansmen on the street corner shouting incomprehensibly at passersby ... they are at worst a mild inconvenience and at best a living example of mindless reactionary dogma, a sort of irrelevant artifact of a bygone era which can be used to show people how not to think.

[Q]

Part of me thinks "hey, who cares what this guy says, he's a caricature of himself." You can find pastors saying all sorts of dumb shit in isolated parts of the USA ... while I found Q's post amusing I do tent to think that these folks tend to be more of an embarrassment and a liability to themselves than a threat to society. It's like when you have four illierate klansmen on the street corner shouting incomprehensibly at passersby ... they are at worst a mild inconvenience and at best a living example of mindless reactionary dogma, a sort of irrelevant artifact of a bygone era which can be used to show people how not to think.

You might have a point if said pastor is ridiculed by his community. But very often this doesn't seem the case. Rightwing christian conservatism holds a huge sway in the US and especially in small communities like these.

While my previous post was not meant to be taken literally, it was meant to be a "call to arms" to fight these reactionary ideas, as they are instruments of the ruling class. Part of their success is that these christian communities have an inclusive and active social life, with their own institutions. So, instead we need to engage with the conservative christian communities and convince them of a pro-working class base of ideas and activity and solidarity.

This incidentally implies a long term partyist approach to organisation of our class.

[chegitz guevara]

There should be more. ;)

A perfectly random distribution would mean about 1/4 of all US marriages were interracial, so there's still room for improvement. I don't think we'll ever achieve that, since people tend to want someone like their parents, since that's upon whom we imprint as being ideal people when we are young.

But we've gone from a situation where my SO and I were just about the only IR couple we knew, to it being so common I shouldn't be shocked anymore. I am, because I grew up in a time where it simply was not done, but a quick check among my coworkers, and it turns out that all of my managers who are married are in IR relationships.

[brigadista]

do these people also believe in demonic possession and that god created the world in 7 days?