It’s sad, but not altogether surprising, that some people in 2012 feel this way:
A Jackson [Miss.] couple had their wedding rehearsal last week, two days before their scheduled big day at the Crystal Springs church where they were planning to get married.
But the couple’s dream of exchanging vows in the church they had been attending was dashed when the church pastor relayed to them that some members had complained about the black couple getting married in the predominantly white First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs.
Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson said it was devastating having to move their wedding to another church only days before the July 21 wedding.
But what’s even more discouraging is that the pastor of the church, Stan Weatherford, gave in to the demands of “five or six” racist parishioners — and then tried to justify his cowardice by saying he was trying to be nice to the black couple:
“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-Channel 3.
Get this: the First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs is the Wilsons’ church! This couple are members of the congregation, but weren’t allowed to marry in their own church. Charles Wilson nailed Pastor Weatherford:
“If you’re for Christ, you can’t straddle the fence,” Wilson said of Weatherford. “He knew it was wrong.”
Happily, many in that congregation are embarrassed and offended by what happened. Gotta say I blame the pastor for this. He should have told the handful of complainers to get lost, bless your hearts.
Siarlys,
You wrote above:
“Of course Ross Douthat doesn’t want businessmen to refuse service to people of dark skin color on religious grounds. BUT, when you claim a constitutional right, your reasoning has to apply across the board. There is no way to establish a precedent that a Catholic employee of employers DOESN’T have to follow a law of general application without opening the door to such a claim. That’s why “I want what I want, and I want it now” is a poor basis for making law.”
I was essentially making the same argument with fewer and different words. Now I know my writing skills suck, but do they suck so bad that you couldn’t see that? Or did your opinion change between post?
To be more clear, I’ll leave you with the words of justice Scalia. Scalia, writing for the majority in Employment Division v.Smith, wrote,
“To permit this [granting exemptions from "neutral laws of general applicability" for religious purposes]would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”