I’m not sure what to think about this one.
On one hand the pastor and his church has every right to deny admittance to anyone they choose not to allow into their church based on whatever they choose acceptable or non-acceptable but then again it was a private funeral not a regular church service.
On the other hand, the article seemed to imply that it wasn’t the family who objected to his/her presence and him/her did not seem to be there to make a statement other than to pay respect to a family member at his funeral. It didn’t become an “issue” until the pastor threw Dermaine out. And the dress didn’t look all that bad BTW.
Some say “Sin should not be tolerated in the House of God.” But I also understood that Christians are supposed to “hate the sin but love the sinner”. If “sinners” are never allowed in Church, I would suspect that attendance would go down considerably and even a lot of priests and pastors would have to stay home on that account.
This pastor perhaps missed an opportunity to reach out to this person and open a dialogue but instead showed such intolerance that Mr./Ms.Dermaine now has such a bitter experience and feeling no love there, will most likely never come back.
When my mother died, she requested a traditional Latin Mass. I’m not a Catholic, in fact I am an Agnostic/semi-Atheist. I respected her wishes and out of respect for her, not her church, I covered my head with a “chapel veil”. I’ve also attended funeral services at a Jewish Temple and a Mosque and no body threw me out because I didn’t believe the same.
There is a time and place for everything and this was neither for your suggestion above.