A Louisiana official is coming under fire for his refusal to marry an interracial couple.
Judge Keith Bardwell, an elected justice of the peace for 34 years, told a Louisiana newspaper that he refused to marry the white Beth Humphrey, 30, and her black boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, for the sake of their future children.
"I don't do interracial marriages because I don't want to put children in a situation they didn't bring on themselves," Bardwell told the Hammond Daily Star. "In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer."
Bardwell insisted that he is not a racist, noting that he has married black couples before.
His refusal has led the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana to request that the Louisiana Judiciary Committee remove Bardwell from office.
"It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009," ACLU attorney Katie Schwartzmann told the paper. "The Supreme Court ruled as far back as 1963 that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry."
Bardwell is the 8th Ward justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish.
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