Saturday, 17 October 2009

A Double Dose of Depression

Just when you thought the US was "post-racial" having elected Obama, along comes Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in Louisiana who has refused to marry a couple of different ethnicities.

What's even more shocking is that this is not his first refusal, but his FIFTH, and the authorities have done nothing about it.

Okay the man's an idiot and a racist, but he should not be allowed to be an idiot and a racist on the public purse. Instead, he should be sacked and the prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

When I taught a course on the American Civil Rights movement, I drew my students' attention to Loving v. Virginia (1967), where the Supreme Court unanimously declared the Commonwealth of Virginia's "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, so ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage.

However, I did have to laugh at his comment that he had, "piles of black friends [who] come to my home [and] use my bathroom". If I was him I'd check to see that they didn't take a dump anywhere else.

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