Thanks to the pastor of Lee’s Chapel Baptist Church in Sweetwater, Tennessee, a dying man’s final wish wont be granted at his funeral.
According to a report from WTVC, Jessie Goodman says that the church where he planned to hold his father’s funeral is denying his father’s dying wish simply for the fact that he’s gay and engaged to his fiancee, Brandon Smitty.
Goodman’s father wants his funeral to be held Lee’s Chapel Baptist because that’s the first church he ever attended. But when Pastor Jay Scruggs discovered Goodman’s lifestyle, that plan went out the window.
“They’re punishing my dad for a lifestyle choice I’ve made. Its not me up there in a casket. It’s him,” Goodman told WTVC.
Additionally, the man, whose name the family asked WTVC to keep private, wanted his son to sing “The Anchor Holds.”
Goodman said that if he was going “to take part in any way,” the pastor told him that his father “could not have his service there.”
Some of the church’s congregation also disapproved the service due to Goodman’s sexual orientation.
When WTVC reached out to Pastor Scruggs for comment, he said that he’d only speak on the matter after Goodman’s father is buried.
Speaking to WTVC, church member Daryl Morrow said that while he disapproves of Goodman’s fiancee attending the funeral, he believes that Lee Chapel Baptist should go ahead with the service.
Goodman said that when he told his father that the church denied his wishes, “he had a very hurt look on his face when we told him that.”
Goodman’s father reportedly only has days to live.
Watch WTVC’s report below:
Featured image via screen grab
