After Yvonne Moore, a member of Covenant Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., sat through a same sex commitment ceremony in her church in 2007, she was angry. First, she filed a lawsuit. Then she left the congregation she has been a part of for nearly 40 years.
“Why did I do it?” Moore said during a CNN interview. “That’s a good question. It’s funny now because that’s not of God. That was me. I just got pissed off.
“I’m Southern Baptist and the Bible speaks against it ,” she said. “You cannot take that in the church.”
Moore has since dropped the lawsuit, but said she’ll never return to the church.
At their recent annual convention, Southern Baptists approved resolutions to promote the institution of marriage and family in their churches and to condemn legislative attempts to legalize homosexuality in the military and the workplace.
According to CNN, Moore, who attended the commitment ceremony for the gay couple– to see if it would actually occur, told an interviewer—she sued for the refund of the more than $250,000 she believes she’s given to the church.
Church Pastors Christine and Dennis Wiley have very different views than those of Moore.
“You cannot just read the Bible and think that somehow you have now mastered the word of God,” Dennis Wiley said.
The Wileys performed two same-sex ceremonies in 2007 and 2008, and said their push to be inclusive of the entire community has split their congregation. Christine Wiley says half the congregation has left over the issue, but the couple will not be deterred from pushing for equal rights.
“I don’t think we, as a people, have a lock on civil rights,” Dennis Wiley said.