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A Pike County minister has stirred up quite a controversy after a proposal that would ban interracial marriages in his Baptist church.

A lot of people feel like the small Kentucky town of Gulnare took a step backward in fighting stereotypes in that part of the state when Reverend Melvin Thompson submitted a proposal to a church committee to ban interracial marriages in Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church.

East Kentucky Broadcasting reports the proposal, which passed with a vote of nine to six, reads like this: "That the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church does not condone interracial marriage. Parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they they be used in worship services and other church functions, with the exception being funerals."

The proposal does not exclude them from attending public worship.

Ticha Chikuni says the committee met after he and his fiancee, Stella, attended a service recently as an engaged couple. Stella has been a member of the church all her life, but will now have to go somewhere else.

"For someone who's been going to that church all her life she was expecting support," said Chikuni. "But, everyone fell off the bandwagon and passed really harsh judgment on her, on us and the family, too."

LEX 18 called Reverend Thompson for comment, but he has chosen not to talk any more about why he wrote the proposal. Thompson is not the head pastor at the church, and that man actually opposed the proposal.