Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward, refused to marry the couple on the grounds that interracial marriages “don’t last’” and he had “‘concerns for the children” that might result from the union.
It isn’t in the job description of a justice of the peace to make marriage predictions or offer advice on raising children, he is to perform a duty that he has been elected to perform.
Patricia Morris, president of the local NAACP branch, has called for Bardwell’s resignation. “He’s an elected public official and one of his duties is to marry people. He doesn’t have the right to say he doesn’t believe in it. If he doesn’t do what his position calls for him to do, he should resign from that position.”
The couple received a license from another justice a few days later, but the scars of Bardwell’s racism remains. Bardwell insists that he’s not a racist. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house,” he told Hammond’s newspaper, The Daily Star.
Bardwell’s actions are the latest in a series of racially charged controversies coming from the state of Louisiana, ranging from the mishandling of the Katrina disaster and its effects in mostly-black New Orleans neighborhoods in 2005 to the Jena Six assault controversy of 2007. Bardwell must resign his position, and it is up to the state and the municipality to ensure that he does so. Many were up in arms about justices “interpreting” the law when it came to same-sex couples — why hasn’t there been more of an outcry against this blatantly illegal attempt to deny Americans their rights?
–todd williams
