Noisy church cries "racism"

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on December 29th, 2009

The article in the Wall Street Journal sets the scene by describing erstwhile SHECKYmagazine columnist Dan French onstage at the Cap City Comedy Club.

Dan French was telling a joke about being bald when strains of gospel music flooded the comedy club where he was performing.

“Am I being heckled by God?” he asked the audience at the Capitol City Comedy Club.

The music was coming from Fresh Oil Family Fellowship, a boisterous nondenominational congregation that occupies the adjacent storefront in a strip mall here.

The founder of the boisterous church has been asked by the lord… er the landlord, to vacate. The pastor is in no mood to go.

The comedy club management has complained about the noise. French is quoted further as saying that standup is “a very constructed experience” and that, “If there’s any distraction at all it doesn’t work.” Sounds reasonable.

The “Bishop,” says religious bigotry and racism is behind the complaints and that his church is being “bullied out of the strip mall because it is a black church.” Sounds decidedly unreasonable.

Of course, Rich Miller (Cap City’s proprietor) and the landlord are in for a protracted fight. The press will probabaly side with the bishop. And a succession of boneheaded judges will no doubt refuse to back the landlord and the club (even with expert testimony from the learned Mr. French).

Peruse French’s archives here.

H/T to T. Reilly!

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