A North Carolina woman is planning to bring legal action against a former employer after she was reportedly let go for getting pregnant out of wedlock. Venita Short told ABC news she was fired from the New Life Baptist Daycare and Preschool in Fayetteville after she told the staff she was expecting and was immediately questioned about her plans to get married.

Short said she told the church administrator who inquired about her long term plan, ”I plan to get married one day, but not because I’m pregnant.”

It was at that point that the administrator told Short the daycare committee would have to determine if she could work at the facility or not, and the obvious ending was that she could not. What makes the firing even more baffling to Short is the fact that before she was fired, she took care of several children of single parents at the church. And what’s more, even though she had worked at the church for just a year-and-a-half, she had already received at least three pay raises based on her positive reviews.

With the Pastor of the New Life Baptist Church, Ed Wilson, neglecting to return calls to ABC 11, there has yet to be any formal explanation on Short’s firing, other than the one she told the news station:

“They told me I was fired because I am pregnant and I am not married.”

Short said she is currently in the process of hiring an attorney to take the matter to court. Do you think she has a case? What do you think about unwed mothers working in Christian centers being fired for the message they’re assumed to be sending?

I know everyone says we need to stay out of women’s wombs, particularly those of celebrities, but Nia Long’s is one I’m about to jump in. In the November issue of Ebony, the expectant mother, who already has an 11-year-old son, discusses her current pregnancy. While she drops some pretty solid introspection on what it’s like to come into your own as a 40-year-old woman, when she speaks of her bun in the oven she says: “I honestly asked God for this.”

I was just a smidge confused. She continues:

“The medical [profession] tries to tell every woman, ‘Have your babies before 40 because you shouldn’t have children after 40. Society tells us, ‘Get married before 30, because no man wants a woman after 30.’

“You are not half the woman you’re gonna be until you turn 30. You’re not even half of that woman yet,” Long adds. “So I think if we’d just take our time as women, and do what comes natural to us and for us, we would make fewer mistakes.”

Last year when a Twitter war was launched on an initiative I organized called ,”No Wedding No Womb,”  I engaged in a brief exchange with a black, 20-something female blogger who covers black folks’ media.  When I told her that, among other things, our 73 percent out-of-wedlock rate makes black people look irresponsible to people all over the globe, she replied with something I’ll never forget: “What do I care what other races think of me?”

Oh grasshopper.  How much you must learn.

by China Okasi & Dr. Boyce Watkins

The reasons for divorce can range tremendously. We’re not here to run your love life, but we’re tired of people getting divorced because their lovers farted. Seriously. Stop abusing the court system! And have some damn sense before you get married. Not every guy that “likes it should put a ring on it”–nor should any guy just be putting a seed in your womb either, for crying out loud! (This same sentiment applies to the fellas. Can you dudes please stop getting married and then turning around to divorce somebody because you think the grass is greener on the other behind?! I mean, sheeessshhh!)

Now, back to the ladies. Read the following list VERY CLOSELY. We are here to lay out SERIOUS reasons that you can have for leaving your husband. Do not leave your man if he does not give you any one of these good reasons to leave him! Marriage is a marathon, not a leisurely stroll to CVS.

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