Interracial Marriage Remains an Issue

Interracial marriage remains an issue for some:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A white 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.

(Full article from the Associated Press: Interracial couple denied marriage license in La.)

I can’t believe a justice of the peace in 2009 would be so backwards.  Few of us can say for certain we are of a single race, mixing has been going on for centuries.     This issue is the subject of one of two pols this week, see right sidebar to vote.

We all know our president is the child of an interracial couple, he seemed to do alright for himself.  What bothers me is it seems like the interracial marriage issue only comes up when one party is black.  What about an Asian and an American Indian?  Would this justice of the peace object to that union? Probably not, we are hung up on black.  I just thought we were long past the point of a government representative blocking black & white marriages.

– Steve Patterson