Event Hall Owner Apologizes After Cancelling Mixed-Race Wedding Due to Their ‘Christian Beliefs’

BOONE’S Camp Event Hall in Mississippi, apologized over the weekend for its manager telling LaKambria S. Welch that her brother and his fiancée, who had reserved the venue for their wedding, were no longer welcome.

Welch is white, his fiancée is Black.

In the video, viewed more than two million times, the event hall manager tells Welch that her brother and his fiancée, who had reserved the venue for their wedding, were no longer welcome.

“First of all, we don’t do gay weddings or mixed race … because of our Christian race, I mean, our Christian belief,” she said.

Asked what in the Bible led to her decision, the woman replied, “I don’t want to argue my faith.”

Deep South Voice reported: ‘Welch says she believes the venue found out her brother and his fiancée, whose names she has not provided to DSV, through Facebook. “The owner took a look at my brother’s fiancée’s page and wrote her back to say they won’t be able to get married there because of her beliefs,” Welch told DSV. “He told my mom and she contacted the owner through messenger to only get a ‘seen’ with no reply. That’s when I took it upon myself to go get clarification on her beliefs.” The Mississippi Secretary of State’s website lists Donna and David Russell as the owner of Boone’s Camp Event Hall, LLC. Filings also show they own Boone’s Camp Mini Storage, LLC.’

The Washington Post reported that a staff member at the venue, presumably the woman in the video, apologized in a now deleted post to Facebook, ‘“To all of those offended, hurt or felt condemn by my statement I truly apologize to you for my ignorance in not knowing the truth about this,” the now-deleted apology read. “My intent was never of racism, but to stand firm on what I ‘assumed’ was right concerning marriage.”

Deadstate reports, “The venue owner’s decision was likely influenced by Mississippi’s “religious freedom” law that was passed by the state Legislature and signed into law in 2016, giving businesses a green light to deny services to LGBT people if it goes against their religious beliefs.”

According to the law as cited by DSV, “the state government shall not take any discriminatory action against a religious organization wholly or partially on the basis that such organization … Solemnizes or declines to solemnize any marriage, or provides or declines to provide services, accommodations, facilities, goods or privileges for a purpose related to the solemnization, formation, celebration or recognition of any marriage, based upon or in a manner consistent with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction described in Section 2 of this act…”

Those beliefs are defined as “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions protected by this act are the belief or conviction that: (a)  Marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman; (b)  Sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage; and (c)  Male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.”

As DSV points out, there is no mention of race in the law.

The City of Booneville distanced itself from the wedding venue in a post on Facebook, writing: “The City of Booneville, Mayor, and Board of Aldermen are aware of the comments recently made by a privately owned business located within the city of Booneville. The City of Booneville, Mayor, and Board of Aldermen do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender, age, national origin, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status. Furthermore, the City of Booneville, Mayor, and Board of Aldermen do not condone or approve these types of discriminatory policies.”