Venita Short had a secured job and was doing well as a staff at the New Life Baptist Church’s daycare and preschool in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Apart from the accolades, she was the recipient of three salary increases in recognition of her hard work.
But when she learned that she was pregnant and shared the news with the wife of the church’s pastor, Cindy Wilson, she was chastised and told that she had “sinned” and “fornicated,” before she was asked if she had any intentions of marrying the father of the baby before it was born.
When Short replied that she had no such intentions and that she would remain single, the church sacked her.
She said, “The church told me I was fired because I am pregnant and I am not married.”
Sadly, later that year, she lost the baby. She also filed a lawsuit against the church.
The court case proved to be the source of the real drama, more drama than the church, Pastor Ed Wilson, and his family would have liked.
When questioned in the Cumberland County Superior Court, pastor was forced to admit that he himself had a son out of wedlock in 1987 when he was still unmarried.
Not only that, his son, who is also the church’s assistant pastor, 27-year-old James J.R. Wilson, had a “steamy” affair with one of the workers at the daycare center. When his ex-wife, Sarah McCloskey, was asked to testify, she disclosed that during their marriage, he had frequented the services of prostitutes.
The only reprimand J.R. got was “termination” from his church duties for a month, before he resumed his normal duties.
The Wilsons’ lawyers argued that the church’s policy called for dismissal of any of its staff for violating moral codes, including premarital sex, or “fornication.” But they lost that argument when witnesses brought to light the double standards following the fornication that had been taking place among the church’s own leadership.
Short, 31, who has won the case and expects a payout from the church, is currently 33 weeks pregnant with a boy.
