A lesbian couple from Mississippi says they were asked to leave their Baptist church over their relationship.
Mary Catherine Trollinger and her partner Olivia Jennings were notified by letter that they were no longer welcome at Gracewood Baptist Church in Southaven, where they met last year, reported WATN-TV.
Their pastor, Barry Baker, signed the letter, which stated he had warned them against pursuing an “unbiblical” and “degrading” same-sex relationship, and told the couple they had been unanimously — and “sadly” — voted out during a special business meeting at the church.
“I told you that the church could not allow you to live in unrepentant disobedience without addressing it,” Baker wrote. “We love you too much to neglect you.”
The pastor noted that the couple’s recent wedding — “on Father’s Day, no less,” Baker added — had prompted the banishment, which Trollinger’s mother supported.
“Not only did my mom say you can’t live here,” Trollinger said, “but my church said you can’t go here and it was in the same day, so I was pretty heartbroken was in a deep depression for a few months there.”
The couple met at Gracewood while Trollinger was serving as college director there, and they were asked to leave the church months ago, which they did, before they were officially voted out as members.
“It’s one thing if you send out a letter that’s generic, just a template, but it’s another thing to personalize the letter,” Trollinger said. “In that sense, all the things that were said it wasn’t out of love, it was more out of spite.”
The church declined to comment on the letter or the couple’s membership.