Just today I saw two news stories that disturbed me about our lack of progress on diversity. I thought the 1950s were behind us, and now I see that they aren’t.

The first one was about Boone’s Camp Event Hall in Boonesville, Mississippi which refused to allow a mixed race couple marry in their venue because it violated their “Christian” principles. [They don’t like gays either, and probably would oppose Jews if there were any unfortunate enough to live there.] When the owner was asked for Biblical justification against mixed marriage, she couldn’t find any. After a couple of days searching through the Bible and consulting with a pastor, she admitted she was wrong and apologized.

I would like to believe she saw the light, but the skeptic in me believes she feared a law suit. Then again after years in church and Bible school, I would hope she would realize it doesn’t take a close reading of the Bible, especially the New Testament, being all about love. Maybe she missed that day?

The other story happened in Marysville, Michigan where a candidate for town council, Jean Cramer, pulled out after the furor over her desire to keep Marysville as white as possible. She didn’t back down. There was no apology–just a single sentence. The good news there is not all bigots come from the South.

Hopefully these are isolated incidents, but they have become all too common in the last few years. Some people may have privately felt that way, but they kept those thoughts to themselves until the last election. I was hoping the Old South had gone away to be replaced by the better more inclusive New South. I remember the 1950s and it wasn’t pretty in Virginia.

In both cases these are people in their 50s and 60s. They are desperately afraid of social change and the ethnic composition of the country. They want to return to the era of Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, and Lawrence Welk. It isn’t going to happen. They are the dinosaurs and headed in that direction.