LaKambria Welch decided to go to the event hall her brother and future sister-in-law chose to hold their wedding after she found out an employee of the hall said the couple could not rent it out. Her brother is black and his fiancé is white; Boone’s Camp Event Hall does not hold weddings for interracial or gay couples. It goes against their ‘Christian’ faith.
“First of all, we don’t do gay weddings or mixed race, because of our Christian race — I mean our Christian belief,” the woman says in the video.
Welch responds to the woman, questioning “Okay we’re Christians as well, so… What in the Bible tells you that?”
The woman in the video says she’s doesn’t want to “argue” her faith.
“We just don’t participate. We just choose not to,” the woman says.
NY Daily News:
Mississippi’s ‘Religious Freedom’ Laws
In 2016, the Mississippi Legislature passed a “religious freedom” law allowing businesses to refuse service to LGBT people on the basis of their religious beliefs about marriage or gender. Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed that bill, House Bill 1523, into law.
The law was struck down for being unconstitutional; however, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law. It was appealed to the Supreme Court, which denied cert.
The law does allow a business to legally discriminate against gay couples (denying services) based on one’s faith. But, it doesn’t say anything about race, which clearly violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
