A Fayetteville church is facing a racial discrimination lawsuit from its former secretary Debbie Dobb.
Dobb, who is white and married to a black man, says it was no coincidence she lost her job when the church decision-makers discovered their relationship.
Dobb doesn’t go to Cumberland Presbyterian Church, but she worked there for two years. She says it seemed to be going well until the elders met her new husband, Michael Hampton.
“I know God, and he is very much in control of everything that goes on,” Hampton said.
Dobb wasn’t a member at the church, but she says she still felt right at home.
“I loved them. I thought of them all as my family and they treated me, it’s mainly elderly, all white, and they treated me like a granddaughter,” Dobb said.
Earlier this year, at her own church, Debbie met Michael.
As their relationship grew, Debbie says the suspicions did at work, too.
“After they [saw] us, and their spouses, the very next day, when I went to work, I was told by the pastor that the pastor and the elders wanted to have a meeting with me,” Dobb said. “And at the meeting, which was about two days later, all of a sudden I’m not doing anything right. My clothes aren’t right. My job performance isn’t right. And most specifically, I am to not talk about my personal life any more with anybody at that church anymore.”
Then it was Easter. Debbie had a solo in the church production, and soon she says she had a bigger problem when her husband showed up in the audience.
“The very next day, a member came in and I heard them gossiping about me, behind closed doors, very maliciously,” Dobb said.
Debbie soon lost her job.
“Our blood is all the same, and God made all of us,” she said.
At the advice of an attorney, the church’s pastor, Tim Smith, declined an interview Monday but did say there is more to the story.
A judge will sort it all out.
As for the newlyweds, building a new life together and facing this kind of challenge has quickly taught them a lesson in both patience and perseverance.
“I don’t understand how anyone can say they are a Christian and attend a church and hear the word of God and be so full of hate,” Dobb said.
Debbie is also suing the church’s general assembly, which oversees the church. It has a bylaw denouncing racism, but Debbie says she feels the assembly did nothing to enforce that bylaw.
In the lawsuit, she is asking for a jury trial, back pay and $500,000 dollars in damages.
