text: The pastor at a small Kentucky church says he has nullified a vote by parishioners that banned interracial couples from the church. 
   
   "As far as I'm concerned and the church is concerned, this case will be closed as of tomorrow," Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church pastor Stacy Stepp said Saturday, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. "We will ... get back on the right track and continue to win souls for the Lord." 
   
   Stepp, who said he opposed the vote, declared it null and void after approaching the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists, which consists of 13 Pike County churches. 
   
   The conference met Saturday and released a statement saying it had reviewed the situation and concluded that the vote was of no effect because it "was not carried out in accordance with" Robert's Rules of Order, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, and would therefore require a change in the church bylaws. 
   
   The Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church voted 9 to 6 on Nov. 27 to ban interracial couples from church services or functions, with the exception of funerals. 
   
   Stella Harville, 24, and her fiance Ticha Chikuni, 28, are the couple that prompted the church's actions. Harville is white and Chikuni is black. The couple met at Georgetown College in Kentucky, where both were students, and they plan to marry in July 2012. 
   
   Harville is in graduate school in Indiana and Chikuni is working at Georgetown College, but when the couple visits Harville's parents in Pike County, Ky., they usually go to church with her parents. 
   
   Harville's parents Cathy and Dean Harville have been church members for decades. Cathy Harville has taught Sunday school at the church and Dean Harville was a deacon there and is currently the church's secretary. They consider the church's 42 congregants their family. 
   
   But after a service in June where Stella Harville and Chikuni participated by singing and playing the piano for a hymn, the family was shocked when then-pastor Melvin Thompson approached them after the service. 
   
   Interracial Couple Prompts Church Ban 
   
   "There seemed to not be a problem and then all of a sudden the pastor at the time came up to [Chikuni] and told him he could not sing anymore," Harville said. "That floored us. We wanted to know why." 
   
   The next week, Cathy and Dean Harville met with Thompson and were shocked to hear their pastor say that members of the congregation had said they would walk out if Chikuni sang again. The parents wanted to know exactly who had a problem with their future son-in-law. 
   
   "'Me, for one,'" Cathy Harville said that Thompson replied. She said he added, "'The best thing [Stella] can do is take him back where she found him.'" 
   
   She said the pastor would not tell her any names of other people who took issue with Chikuni. 
   
   Cathy Harville was taken aback. 
   
   "There's no love at all in that and that really hurt me," she said. "They are both Christians and they both try to live a Christian life and serve God. There is nothing in the Bible that we found that tells us that the couple should not be married." 
   
   Thompson could not be reached for comment. 
   
   Thompson has since been replaced with a new pastor who said that everyone was welcome at the church and the Harville family said the issue was dropped, but at a recent meeting Thompson, who is still a member of the congregation, brought up the issue again and asked that it be discussed at a business meeting among the church's men. 
   
   "Grown men cried at that meeting," Cathy Harville said. Three men voted to bring the issue before the church for a vote, and two voted against it, so the matter went before the congregation this past Sunday. 
   
   Harville said that of 42 members, very few stayed for the meeting after church and even fewer voted. She said most congregants wanted no part of the vote. 
   
   The motion read, in part: "The Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church does not condone interracial marriage. Parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they be used in worship services and other church functions, with the exception being funerals." 
   
   And: "The recommendation is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but indicated to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve." 
   
   Church Torn by Ban on Interracial Couples 
   
   Ultimately, nine people voted for the motion and six voted against it and interracial couples were banned. 
   
   "It hurt," Harville said. "[Stella] knew she was going to face some challenges after she decided she would marry Ticha, but I didn't think it would be from our family." 
   
   Stella Harville and Chikuni did not respond to requests for comment. 
   
   Other churches in the community have condemned the decision. 
   
   Randy Johnson, president of the Pike County/Pikeville Area Ministerial Association, which includes about 60 churches, said many people already have "stigmas" and "stereotypes" that they associate with Appalachia and that this decision does not accurately represent the vast majority of the community. 
   
   "This really is an anomaly. This is not in any way, shape or form the sentiment of any other local churches or church leaders," Johnson said. "It really has saddened many people. It goes against almost everyone else's philosophy and theology of what it means to be a church." ||||| The pastor of a Pike County church that voted to exclude interracial couples from membership said he plans to take the advice of a church conference and declare the vote null and void in a meeting after services Sunday. 
   
   "As far as I'm concerned and the church is concerned, this case will be closed as of tomorrow," Stacy Stepp, pastor of the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church, said Saturday. "We will ... get back on the right track and continue to win souls for the Lord." 
   
   Stepp had approached the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists, which consists of 13 Pike County churches, with a request for help after the church ignited a firestorm of criticism by voting 9-6 last Sunday to approve a statement saying it didn't condone interracial marriage. 
   
   The statement said that while everyone was welcome to attend, interracial couples would not be received as members or used in worship services. 
   
   Stepp said he opposed the statement. 
   
   The Sandy Valley Conference met Saturday and issued a statement saying it had reviewed the situation and concluded that the vote was of no effect because it "was not carried out in accordance with" Robert's Rules of Order. 
   
   The conference's parliamentary committee said the measure to exclude interracial couples would require a change in the church bylaws. Under Robert's Rules, such a change would require a vote of the majority of the entire membership, or a vote of two-thirds of those voting, the committee concluded. 
   
   Since the church has about 44 members, a simple majority would require 23 "yes" votes for the motion to pass; two-thirds of those voting would have been 10 "yes" votes. 
   
   "There wasn't enough support in that tiny church for what they did," said Jim Patton, a representative of the conference and pastor of the Pikeville Free Will Baptist Church. "This is not any longer a part of their church. It is null and void." 
   
   In its public statement, the conference said that it "will continue to work with the Gulnare church to rebuild what has been damaged by this tragic error." 
   
   "We the churches of the Sandy Valley Conference strongly denounce prejudice, racism and all ungodly forms of conduct, whether within the church or without," the statement said. 
   
   Dean Harville, a longtime member and church clerk, said a former pastor who attends the church, Melvin Thompson, proposed that the church make a statement against interracial marriage after Harville's daughter, Stella, brought her fiancé to a worship service last summer and the two performed a song. 
   
   Stella Harville is white; her fiancé is black. 
   
   Thompson previously declined to discuss the issue with the Herald-Leader, but he told the Associated Press last week that he is not prejudiced. 
   
   Patton said Saturday that Thompson has "repented" and would not bring the issue up again. "He is devastated. He is broken-hearted," Patton said. "He is a good man." 
   
   Stella Harville, who is pursuing a graduate degree in optical engineering at a college in Indiana, said she hopes the church follows through with a reversal of its previous vote. 
   
   "Let's just hope that the members have gotten the message — overturn it," she said. "But I'm not going to hold my breath." 
   
   Stepp said that on Sunday, the church will likely take an informal vote "for the unity of the church" stating that all people are welcome, regardless of race. 
   
   Herald-Leader staff writer Bill Estep contributed to this report.
target: – A Kentucky pastor has nullified a vote by his church to ban interracial couples, he says. “As far as I'm concerned and the church is concerned, this case will be closed as of tomorrow,” said Stacy Stepp on Saturday, after raising the issue with a council of local church leaders. The group ruled that the vote had no weight because parishioners hadn’t followed proper voting rules, ABC News reports. Stepp opposed the vote in the first place, he told the Lexington Herald-Leader.