StupidiNews Focus

Zandar's ire. It is raised.

A justice of the peace in northern Louisiana has refused to grant a marriage license to an interracial couple because he believes it would harm any children born of that relationship.

“I’m not a racist,” Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in the state's Tangihapoa Parish, told the Hammond, Louisiana, Daily Star. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”

The Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is calling the justice's move "tragic and illegal."

The Hammond Daily Star reports:

Beth Humphrey, 30, said she and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, intend to consult the US Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.

Humphrey said she called Bardwell Oct. 6 to inquire about getting a marriage license signed. She said Bardwell’s wife told her that Bardwell will not sign marriage licenses for interracial couples.

The paper quotes the justice of the peace as saying that “99 percent of the time” an interracial couple will consist of a black man and white woman, and “I find that rather confusing.”

Evidently, Bardwell has long had a policy of not marrying interracial couples, and admitted that Louisiana's attorney general had warned him years ago that he could "get into trouble" because of it.

“I told him if I do, I’ll resign,” Bardwell told the Daily Star. “I have rights too. I’m not obligated to do that just because I’m a justice of the peace.”

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Justice Department disagrees with you on that. And in an era where a child of an interracial couple can grow up to be President of the United States of America (or even a political blogger like myself), as a mixed-race person might I offer a hearty "screw you, I hope the DoJ fries your ass" to Magistrate Bardwell.

It's 2009. The world's changed. Louisiana in fact has a pretty long history of interracial couples and children of those couples (and not from marriage), as do many other Southern states. This kind of thing isn't going to fly anymore. Might as well ask anyone who comes in for a marriage license to flip a coin, heads they can, tails they're one of the 50% or so of marriages that end in divorce, so why bother?

But don't use mixed-race kids as an excuse to deny marriage saying "society will not accept them." What society should not accept, sir, is your staggeringly ignorant self being a magistrate, or in any position of governmental power like that at all.