Uniontown church ‘disqualified’ raffle winner from fishing trip because of her gender, woman claims

UNIONTOWN, Pa. — A woman who won a church raffle prize claims she was “disqualified” because of the fact that she is a woman.

Emily Smaniotto, an avid fish angler, attends the annual fundraiser at Bethel Baptist Church in Uniontown every year with her father. A few weeks ago, she put in a raffle ticket for the big door prize -- a fishing trip to Ohio.

Smaniotto said the guest pastor, Bryan Kelley, said women were disqualified and that the trip was for men only. She actually thought it was a joke at first.

“It was followed up with the joke: ‘Make sure you leave your wives at home,’ and the whole church started laughing... so it made it seem like it was a joke,” she said.

Smaniotto and another woman were the first two tickets drawn for the trip, but they were told they couldn’t go because of their gender.

“I heard another woman in the crowd say, ‘Are you serious,?’ So, I wasn’t the only one having this reaction that they were being discriminatory towards women,” Smaniotto said.

However, Smaniotto told Channel 11 she was even more disappointed by the pastor’s reasoning as to why women were excluded -- because of the possibility of women making “false accusations of sexual misconduct.”

“I was very appalled and offended to learn the reason women couldn’t attend this trip is because of the possibility that a woman would make a false accusation of sexual misconduct,” she said. “That was eye opening.”

When asked about these allegations, an attorney now representing the church and Kelley said the prize wasn’t meant to be an exclusive discriminatory retreat -- and that it was just a miscommunication.

“Bethel Baptist Church often has functions that are designed for men or designed for women. Sometimes they’re mixed, this particular event was designed for men,” said Ken Hardin. “That likely was not communicated as well it should have been to the recipients of the prize.”

The church tried to make it right and invited Smaniotto to a fishing trip with her dad, but she declined. She said she will not be coming back for another fundraiser either.

“If they wanted to have a male-only fishing trip, they should’ve never opened the fishing trip up to females. If you’re not going to offer equal opportunities, you never should’ve offered it at all,” Smaniotto said.

The attorney representing the church said they will continue to offer trips for both men and women together, and separately, in the future.

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