A curious (if not unbelievable) story was making the rounds today as a White female and a Black male were refused a marriage license by a local justice of the peace in Louisiana. One source is the AP story on news.yahoo.com, see: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091015/ap_on_re_us/us_interracial_rebuff
Quoting from the article: |A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue |a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern |for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, |justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his |experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. | |"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that |way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. |"I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, |I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like |everyone else." | |Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if |they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry |them, he said. And from the San Francisco Chronicle, quoting: |What was the reason Judge Bardwell gave for his mindless actions? |"I do it to protect the children, he reportedly said. The kids are |innocent and I worry about their futures." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail??blogid=95&entry_id=49771 Oddly enough, Bardwell's refusal to issue the license/perform the marriage ceremony appears to be legal in Louisiana even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that interracial marriages are legal in its Loving v. Virgina decision; see: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=388&invol=1 Is this a teachable moment? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
