Settled issues
A justice of the peace in Louisiana refused to grant a interracial couple a marriage license. Fail Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) (holding that race-based restrictions on marriage violate the fourteenth amendment’s guarantee of equal protection). At least this guy’s racism is explicit enough that we don’t need a national conversation about it. Cf. Professor Gates’s arrest.
Apparently this JP doesn’t have anything against interracial marriage, but he fears for the welfare of children born into such unions. Fail Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429 (1984). In Palmore, the Florida courts refused to grant custody of a child to the white mother because she was living with a black man, and that may create social stigma that would make life hard for the child. The Supreme Court declared equal protection fail. “Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect.” Id. at 433.
Regarding interracial marriage in general, this paragraph in the CNN story caught my attention:
The number of interracial marriages have skyrocketed, nearly quadrupling between 1970 and 2005, the most recent year for which there is census data. As of 2005, nearly 8.5 million Americans are living in so-called mixed marriages.
My wife and I make up about 0.000024% of that statistic, and for what it’s worth, I’ve never so-called our marriage “mixed.” It makes us sound confused. Marriage may be confusing, but not in any interracial aspect.
EDIT: I forgot to include this comment from my wife regarding the JP’s desire to protect the children: “[S]ince when does a couple have to be married before having kids?”
October 18th, 2009 at 1:53 am
I don’t have all the facts but did he refuse to issue them a license or did he refuse to officiate their marriage. If they had a marriage license in hand and called on the phone for him ot officiate, that makes a difference because in that case, he did not refuse them marriage, only the ceremony of which he passed it on to someone else in the parish. Like saying next window please. The question is does he have a right not to perform a ceremony for whatever reason any person may have? Consider that legislatures in passing same sex marriages, a clergyman can refuse to marry them with no problem. So why isn’t it no problem for this case. One is for race the other for gender.
October 18th, 2009 at 11:09 am
It appears that the JP refused to issue a license. In any case, a JP is an officer of the state. Whether refusing to grant a license or to officiate a ceremony, he is making an improper racial classification—equal protection fail.
The clergy exception you mention was a sop to the bigots. Members of the clergy are not state actors. The Constitution protects religious bigotry as emphatically as it prohibits state bigotry. (One could argue that protection for religious bigotry is protected even more emphatically.)
October 18th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Latest comments from the Republican (in)Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell (source: USA Today)
“Everybody hates me,” he tells reporters. “Really. I don’t know why. I treat people, I figure, equal. I have one problem with mixed marriages and that is the offspring.”
I guess some offspring are more equal than others…
One would think he could answer the mystery of why everyone hates him by meditating on his last comment regarding interracial “offspring”. I suppose an interesting question that should be asked is how a person this stupid ever got this position in the first place?
His only legal argument is his personal dislike of the existence of interracial kids. Pathetic.