Not San Bernardino but funny nonetheless

Interracial couple denied a marriage license
By MARY FOSTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oct. 15, 2009, 9:03PM

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for 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 said 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.
Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.
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.
Beth Humphrey, 30, and 32-year-old Terence McKay, both of Hammond, say they will consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.
Humphrey, an account manager for a marketing firm, said she and McKay, a welder, just returned to Louisiana. She is white, and he is black. She plans to enroll in the University of New Orleans to pursue a master's degree .
“It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Katie Schwartzmann, who said the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 “that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry.”
The ACLU sent a letter to the Louisiana Judiciary Committee, asking that Bardwell be punished.
“He knew he was breaking the law ,” Schwartzmann said.