Justice of the Crazy
Posted on | October 16, 2009 |
A justice of the peace in Louisiana refused to issue a marriage license this week to an interracial couple. Trying to justify the decision, Keith Bardwell claimed that the children of such marriage would not be accepted by either race and would thus have a difficult life. He then tried to play the “I have Black friends” card:
“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.
Wow. I expected this to be a recycled story from 1969–not 2009. But it turns out that someone with “piles” of Black friends isn’t racist because he refuses to perform an interracial wedding. Call me crazy, but isn’t that the same thing as being racist?
There’s an underlying theme of this as well that rubs me the wrong way. The assumption that the couple would have children that would be somehow detrimentally impacted by their mixed-race status presupposes that the couple plans on having children. Such a notion is antiquated in and of itself. There are plenty of marriages where the couples don’t have children by choice. Assuming that marriage is just a vehicle to childbearing and rearing is a scary proposition.
Of course, not as scary of a proposition as the proposition that two people of different races shouldn’t marry at all.
…sounds like another battle in marriage equality to me.
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Tags: crazy people > interracial marriage > justices of the peace > marriage > marriage equality > race relations > racism > weddings
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October 16th, 2009 @ 8:59 pm
Even his comments about having black friends sounds racists…”I let them use my bathroom…”
IGNORANT.