Interracial couples NOT welcome!

Yep, it's 2012...

Chalk this up as one of those headlines that make me do a double-take. I was dozing off at the time, too. Apparently, a Kentucky church has gone out of it's way to ban interracial marriage. It made the decision after one of its congregants made the monumentally dangerous decision of bringing her Zimbabwean fiance to church, where she played the piano while he sang. And no, the church is not caught up in a time warp or being punked by M. Night Shyamalan (I checked).

He sang "I Surrender All."

Apparently, he couldn't or wouldn't surrender his skin color, because he is not allowed back, or at least not while engaged to a white lady.

You see... the church decided to, uh, proactively make sure it didn't have to deal with this travesty again. It formally banned all interracial couples from coming to the church. Oh wait... except for funerals (I didn't make this up; plus, I thoroughly believe that there is no better place to relax overtly racist mores than at grave sites).

I would have given good, good money and my favoriite Christmas ornaments to see the looks on the faces of the congregants during the song.

Now, apart from giving me major pause, this unbelievable story let to a blog post that presented me with a few unenvisaged issues:

• How would I categorize it with a blog label? I initially wanted to use "Funnies" since it is so shockingly unbelievable, but also considered creating a new one: ...Songs that won't get you invited back to church...
• Confusion. How on earth would this church deal with the cast of Jersey Shore? Over-tanning would definitely be an issue. I guess re-runs of Mixed Blessings never play during church get-togethers. Guess who didn't come to that dinner. What happened to simply making people feel uncomfortable? I'm all for democracy, but, c'mon. For real?
• A weird sense of understanding... maybe this church is simply misunderstood. Maybe they were striking back for the disenfranchised expatriates Robert Mugabe ticked off with his land reform. 

In any case, this stuff still happens in the Land of the Free, so I guess there is still work to be done.

Thanks to Cass for giving me a graphic sign that clearly denotes my speechlessness.