Same way they determined if interracial marriages were okay.
“Sorry, but we took a vote and we decided 9-6 that you’re a negro.”
They can use the famous highly technical Supreme Court “I know it when I see it” test.
It does surprise me though that they won’t just go all the way and ban non white membership right out.
Why not? Astrologers pay taxes, don’t they? And palm readers, and businesses selling quack medicine, and motivational speakers, and New Age shops…
So, they wouldn’t have been able to afford a minister if they paid taxes?
There are good reasons for the tax exempt status of churches, but this isn’t one of them.
But that would be racist! 
I’m only half-joking about that. Racism comes in a lot of forms. So, it wouldn’t shock me at all if these people thought it was perfectly acceptable to have non-whites in the congregation, even if they thought marriage was right out.
It’s not just race. I’m sure several of them would be ‘accepting’ of homosexuals, even if they didn’t think the right to marry should be extended to them.
The Supreme Court decided against the usage of that test, instead replacing it with paint swatch test.
Yes. They take one drop of blood, and if it turns black, the test is positive. That’s the rule.
**
–VT**, Confused about History
Exactly. At the Baptist church I grew up in they held regular business meetings, generally after (or in lieu of) an evening service. We had trustees who oversaw the finances and committees that handled specific things, but any meaningful decision was made by a vote of whoever came to the meeting. It was always a small fraction of the congregation. In fact, the business meetings were usually all men, though I don’t think they were explicitly so.
Building size generally doesn’t reflect congregation size. Churches in eastern KY are notorious for splitting, usually nominally over theologic differences but really over personality clashes. Someone might leave and take a quarter of the congregation, meeting in an abandoned storefront until they get their own building. The original congregation might eventually get so small that it can’t sustain its current building and another growing congregation may move into it.
And no one builds a new church for the congregation they have; they assume that they’ll be growing in leaps and bounds and they’ll need twice as much space a year from now.
Again, I don’t know this church, but that’s the natural history of the typical church here. Given the peach of a guy that was running this congregation it wouldn’t surprise me to find that they’ve already been through a few splits.
I’d guess that Gulnare has all three–maybe not cable, but everybody has a dish now anyway. Again, it’s only about ten miles from one of the region’s hub cities, with a university and everything. A tiny backwoods church like this one probably just doesn’t see the need for a web site.
Is that before or after sundown?
After, but they have to turn white between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Probably only applies if the non-white one in the relationship is the one that’s dead
And conversely, there are many good reasons for stripping churches of tax exempt status, but the members being assholes isn’t one of them.
While I wouldn’t want to associate with any of the people who voted no, any of the people who didn’t want to take a position and so didn’t vote, or any of the people who remained in the church after losing the vote, it is a private group and they get to set their own rules.
I thank them for the public service of self identifying as dicks.
Not only would that not shock me, I’m sure it’s close to a majority position in most southern fundamentalist churches. I would pick any Southern Baptist congregation in the old Confederacy and guarantee you that a strong majority are opposed to homosexual marriage, a lesser majority would support not allowing a practicing homosexual to be a member, and a slight majority would support not allowing a practicing homosexual to attend church services.
I would also guarantee that 98% of these churches are smart enough to realize that taking a stand against miscegenation is the wrong this to do these days, however, a slight majority would disapprove of an interracial couple attending the church, and a strong majority would disapprove of a family member dating a member of a different race. But again, these majorities are street smart enough to not speak out loud about it.
But as you said, it is a different type of racism. Of these people, most don’t hate other races, or hate homosexuals. They just want to be apart from them. And the more rural you get, the stronger the above applies. That’s the Straight Dope…
Using interracial couples in worship services sounds kinda kinky. Are you sure this is a Baptist church and not porn site?
I find this surprisingly annoying. Twenty years ago was 1991 - not exactly the height of Jim Crow.
Yes, there were racists 20 years ago and there are racists today. But we didn’t all just shake our heads sadly and look the other way while we whittled away and shelled peas in our rockers.
We said, "Are you fucking nuts?!
I think you left out a “protestant” in front of “mainline”.
No. If anything, the “Protestant” comes afterwards, but it’s often omitted. It’s a specific term of identification, not a general adjective.
a none-issue. the couple feels bad because they can’t get married in the church of their choosing?
It’s not like they picked the church at random out of phone book. :rolleyes:
The bride is from Pike County, she and her parents are (at least at the time of the vote) members of the church, and she grew up attending services there. They didn’t go looking for places that were likely to kick them out so they could play the victim for attention.
The couple feels bad because people she has literally known all her life have just told them they don’t like her or her choice of husband and want them both gone.
well, you described a church that constitutes a great first choice. but, one discovers new things in strange ways. she chose to be with the guy, not the church or those she grew up with.