I know going in that the most straightforward advice will be to break off the friendship, but I need to get my thoughts out and commiserate a bit with the community.

TLDR - a long-term friend of mine told me that my boyfriend is not welcome at her home for a holiday movie hangout because we are dating, and her and her husband are not comfortable with it.

My (34f) friend "Amber"(38f) and I have been friends for over a decade. We met at work and made a solid group of friends that all continue to spend time together. Although most of us don't work there anymore, we all still get together for casual holidays and yearly traditions. She hosts movie nights at her home through the month of December showing all of her favorite holiday movies and anyone can come by and watch with her and hangout. She has been doing this for over 6 years.

Amber grew up very religious. She is an evangelical Christian and her and her husband are very involved in their church. Our shared group of friends is diverse when it comes to faith and romantic/sexual orientation. In our group there are other queer folks and other atheists (including myself and my husband(37m)). My husband and I were already dating when we met Amber and her husband "Bob"(35m), and we started practicing polyamory before we got married. My wife (34f) (who is ace/aro) is a closer friend to Amber than me, and was a bridesmaid in Amber and Bob's wedding.

A few years ago Amber and I had a falling out over something she posted on Facebook. To make a long story short, it was a church propaganda video that was promoting conversion therapy for queer people. I confronted her about it privately and she stuck by the message. I didn't really talk with her for a year. We saw each other at mutual friend events, but nothing else. She reached out to me eventually and made a very sincere and beautiful apology and talked about how she realized the message of the post was harmful and no longer aligned with her views and faith. We have rebuilt our friendship and trust and I had a ton of respect for her after that.

I became friends with my boyfriend "Carl" (40m) during the pandemic. We started dating a year ago. He has been introduced to our shared friend group and has attended events at mine and other's houses. He is a very kind, talkative, outgoing, and nerdy guy. He has a ton in common with Amber and Bob. They all love D&D, Marvel movies, and board games. If they had met him somewhere else, it would not surprise me if they became friends without my influence at all.

I spent this morning with Amber. We both work from home a lot now, and decided to do that together at a coffee shop in town. We had a lovely and productive morning. As we were packing up so she could go to an appointment I mentioned that I'll see her this weekend for the next movie night, and I would check to see if Carl was available because he is a fan of the movie planned for that evening too. She was quiet after that, but we were leaving, so I didn't think anything of it. About 20 minutes later on my ride home, she calls me and tells me that before I invite Carl, she needs to tell me that her and Bob are not comfortable with him being there. She said that although they are fine with how I choose to run my relationships, they don't want Carl at their home. I wasn't sure what to do. It came out of no where. She sounded regretful for what she was saying. I just told her okay and that we could talk more later and we hung up.

I feel like this is the same unhelpful "hate the sin, not the sinner" mentality that got us on bad terms the first time. Amber has always shown interest in my other relationships and even enjoyed sharing some "juicy details" in the past. Amber has a challenging relationship with her own sexuality. She was raised to save herself for marriage, and both her and Bob did that together. She has a lot of shame around self-pleasure and desire, and from other conversations and incidents, it seems like Bob is no longer comfortable with her even masterbating (but I don't know this for sure).

I don't know if her fear is that some of her church friends might be there too, and she would be afraid of them judging the kinds of people she associates with. If that were the case I would have no problem referring to Carl as a friend in mixed company (we aren't even affectionate in public anyway). But that isn't the rule she set, she said Carl wasn't welcome.

In past years, I have brought my girlfriend at the time to a movie night at her home, and there was no issue. And my husband, wife, and myself were all at her home this past weekend for a gathering with no issue.

The only difference I can see is that Carl is black. I am white, and so is my husband and my ex-girlfriend. My wife is half native American. Amber and Bob are white. Maybe they are letting their internal racial bias influence their acceptance of my polyamory, and using it as an excuse. I don't want to think that of them, and they have been welcoming of other POCs in the past, but I don't want to leave the information out, in case my own white perspective is preventing me from seeing something obvious.

I feel so disappointed that after all the work we have done, especially her, we are at yet another impasse of her views causing a real rift between us. My initial intuition tells me that this is more Bob's influence than Amber's own feelings, but their marriage is very traditional and she follows his lead.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? Does anyone have any insight on what is causing them to take this firm stance? I'm so sad to be forced to make this choice again, but I'm probably going to have to limit my contact with Amber...

Update - I emailed Amber about my confusion and asked her if Carl had done or said something offensive, or what has changed that my partners aren't welcome anymore. She wrote back and said that her and Bob have been exploring their faith more and they "have been reading the Bible and have realized just how deeply marriage is tied as a sacrament of our faith. We are no longer comfortable with having either of you bring a boyfriend or girlfriend over to our home." She said "We are uncomfortable with allowing our home to be used as a place for an extramarital affair to meet and have a date." I wasnt asking to have a date at her house. We were going to watch a children's movie. I showed the email to my wife and I guess she and I can only come to Amber's house now if we come separately??? Well, we don't plan on going at all anymore. Luckily I have a lot of other friends. From the comments here, it seemed like everyone was very concerned that I was going to break her boundaries. I had considered labeling this as a rant rather than advice, and maybe I should have because I was not confused about what boundaries are, I was just confused about what makes people set these kind of boundaries.