I had to check this from a couple different sources to make sure it was real, and, yup, it’s real. A Louisiana justice of the peace refused to marry Terence McKay and Beth Humphrey because he is black and she is white. Via the Huffington Post:
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.”
. . . There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Bardwell said. “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”
If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.
“I try to treat everyone equally,” he said.
Bardwell says that in the past 2 1/2 years he has refused to marry about four couples.
And, yes, what he did is against the law, and the ACLU is preparing a letter for the Louisiana Supreme Court asking them to investigate Bardwell
Watch the CNN report.
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