Mother gets apology after rebuke for breastfeeding inside Brighton church

Susan Bromley | Livingston Daily

A Brighton pastor has apologized to a woman who said she was shamed for breastfeeding inside a church while waiting for her other children to finish Sunday school.

Amy Marchant, 29, said she asked for a public apology after she was accused of immodesty and potentially inspiring “lustfulness” in men for nursing her child at The Naz Church in Brighton in mid-June.

“Of all the places, it is most hurtful when it comes from your own church, that you are going to cause guys to lust after you,” Marchant said Thursday.

Ben Walls, Sr., lead pastor, said the church supports and encourages breastfeeding, and the Father’s Day incident “had to do with breastfeeding, but didn’t.”

He said three different spaces are set aside for “those who want a private space” – a lounge outside of the restroom specifically created for nursing mothers a decade ago and two other rooms in a children’s area “designated for ladies who want privacy.”

“That is what we want to say – we have nothing against breastfeeding and we are in favor,” Walls said. “It’s very hard because we understand that she was very hurt and we apologize to her. We’re very sorry for the embarrassment and hurt caused when she was asked to cover or use one of those rooms. We apologize for her hurt and embarrassment; that wasn’t the intention.”

Marchant and Walls are in basic agreement on what occurred after the June 17 church services, although Walls was not originally involved.

Marchant said she had gone to the children’s worship area to pick up her 4-year-old twins when her 1-year-old daughter “was getting fussy and asking to nurse.”

“I sat down on a bench and decided to nurse her like always,” Marchant said. “I don’t use a cover.”

Walls said he was told by church staff members that Marchant was wearing a dress that was pulled down with both of her breasts exposed.

Nothing was said to her at the church, but when Marchant got home, she said she had a private Facebook message from a woman who is a church leader.

“She said that ‘nursing fully exposed,’ the term she used, was making people uncomfortable,” Marchant said. “She told me to cover up, use an empty classroom, or go down to the main worship area, to part of the bathroom, but which has a nursing area attached to it. It wasn’t presented as an option. She told me to do one of those three things from now on.”

Marchant said she was shocked that shaming women who are breastfeeding still happens anywhere, especially in her own church, where she was “supposed to feel safe.”

She waited a day to respond and said she then let the woman know she was sorry people felt uncomfortable and that she couldn’t be responsible for their feelings.

“Even if I wanted to go somewhere private, that’s not reasonable when I have to watch my 4-year-old twins, and legally speaking, it’s not something she is allowed to ask,” Marchant said.

Marchant then asked to meet with church leaders to discuss the issue and the Breastfeeding Anti-Discrimination Act, signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2014.

The law states in part that a woman may not be denied “full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation or public service because she is breastfeeding a child.”

The incident at the church left Marchant, who has not returned to the church and has no plans to do so, self-conscious about breastfeeding in public.

“A lot of people have stopped nursing because of stuff like that, and I want to say something because a lot of people wouldn’t,” Marchant said.

She met with Walls hoping to express how she had felt shamed and how church leaders could be more welcoming to breastfeeding mothers, but said he was “unreceptive.”

“I was told it was immodest, that it was not shaming, that (breastfeeding) can cause men to lust and stumble,” Marchant said. “They said as long as they provided places for women to nurse, they didn’t have to allow them to nurse anywhere.”

Walls acknowledges he was unfamiliar with the law, but was educated on it during a second meeting at the end of July with Marchant, who was joined by attorney Bill Amadeo and Barbara Robertson, owner of the Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor.

Marchant said she was concerned, however, that church staff seemed more focused on continuing to use the word "immodest" and whether she planned to sue than on addressing the issue. She said she has no intention of filing a lawsuit, but wanted a public apology and amendment to church policies and procedures about the “appropriate way to handle breastfeeding mothers and what to do and not do.”

Walls said he mailed on Thursday a written apology to Marchant’s friend. He also said church officials are writing a new policy that will ask staff, greeters and ushers not to approach a woman who is breastfeeding, and only tell them where a private room is if they ask. He said there is a plan to train staff on the new policy.

He added that about 75% of the women on the church staff have breastfed, and this is the first time in 30 years as pastor he has ever encountered the issue.

“It’s such a tough thing,” Walls said. “We believe in (breastfeeding), we’re sorry for the way it was handled and we have apologized on many occasions and I have written an apology and we have sat down and tried to think it through.

"We are not against anyone breastfeeding anywhere in the church. That is not what the problem was. Both breasts were totally exposed… From their perspective, it’s natural, we know, but we felt it inappropriate for boys and men, and we weren’t trying to shame, we were trying to deal with others who were uncomfortable and how they felt. Hurt, embarrassment, and shame was not intended.”

Jenn D’Jamoos, founder of the Livingston County Birth Circle, said even though the law is on the side of Marchant and other breastfeeding mothers, the real shame is that Marchant had to do the work of educating the church staff.

“It’s definitely a culture thing,” D’Jamoos said. “They all say they support breastfeeding, but with the caveat of ‘but.’ If you support breastfeeding there shouldn’t be a ‘but’ there. You either support it or you don’t. Breasts are seen as sexual and people have a hard time recognizing them for their utilitarian purpose… They aren’t always supposed to be an attractive part of a woman, they are meant to nurse a child. It’s all about context. If she had tassels on her nipples, that would be a different context.”

On Aug. 4, the Livingston County Birth Circle hosted the “Big Latch-On” at All Stars Preschool in Milford. Twenty-four local nursing moms attended the event to raise awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding and the need for global support.

“It is all about creating community and supporting breastfeeding, but we are also saying you don’t have to hide to feed your baby, wherever you are,” D’Jamoos said. “All 50 states now allow women to breastfeed in public. You can’t be asked to leave.”

Elaine Brown, personal preventive health services director for the Livingston County Health Department, said there has been an increase in the county in the past few years of the number of mothers initiating breastfeeding and a small increase in the number of moms who are nursing their children to at least 6 months of age.

Still, the county is not at the Healthy People 2020 goals set by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. The county health department is striving for those benchmarks, which include targets of 81.9% of infants at least initially breastfed and 60.6% of infants still breastfed at 6-months-old.

“We recognize that breastfeeding is the best way to feed a baby and there are many benefits for moms and babies,” Brown said. “For the baby, it strengthens immune system, guards against diabetes and obesity, and it protects mom from breast and ovarian cancer and postpartum depression.”

Contact Susan Bromley at sbromley@livingstondaily.com Follow on Twitter @SusanBromley10