Jindal, Mary Landrieu want official who wouldn't marry interracial couple ousted

Source: Times Picayune, New Orleans

Louisiana's governor and a U.S. senator joined Friday in calling for the ouster of a local official who refused to marry an interracial couple, saying his actions clearly broke the law.

Keith Bardwell, a white justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish in the southeastern part of the state, refused to issue a marriage license earlier this month to Beth Humphrey, who is white, and Terence McKay, who is black. His refusal has prompted calls for an investigation or resignation from civil and constitutional rights groups and the state's Legislative Black Caucus.

-snip-

"Disciplinary action should be taken immediately -- including the revoking of his license," Jindal said.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/10/jindal_mary_landrieu_want_offi.html

This wasn't the first time.

excepting of course the initial crime obviously.

No complaints here.

so the couples were at least able to marry if they wanted to but let's face it the JOP was specifically talking about blacks marrying other races. The JOP would have been o.k. with say Vietnamese and whites or Pakistani and whites.

Good to see Jindal take a decent stand on this one.

Don't even take a minute to credit Jindal or Landrieu. They are not providing leadership on this issue. They're trying to make some political capital on it. That's all. It's easy to find out the masses are outraged at the actions of a single idiot and then pile on by making "me too" remarks.

no complaints from me.

I mean if you're going to start complaining about politicians acting well politically then you won't have much free time to do anything (like sleep, eat or breathe).

Will miracles never cease?

(And Jindal too, for that matter.... )

This cannot have been the first time he did this kind of bullshit, right?

who is of mixed race decent, and bigots are beginning to stand out like a sore thumb.

He's been flying under the radar for some time.

Don't even take a minute to credit Jindal or Landrieu. They are not providing leadership on this issue. They're trying to make some political capital on it. That's all. It's easy to find out the masses are outraged at the actions of a single idiot and then pile on by making "me too" remarks.

They don't have the power to remove a judge.

All they can do is speak out against the judge (although Jindal took his sweet time about it). Landrieu showed leadership by speaking out almost immediately when it was made public.

Judiciary Commission
On recommendation of the judiciary commission, the Supreme Court may discipline or remove judges from office.

That dballance thought one of them could wave a magic wand and the judge would be removed from office.


The first thing I did, which should have been the first thing dballance did, was to check Louisiana laws on removing judges.

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Thanks for the thread, funkybutt.

bipartisan.

Just wondering....I am under the impression some state's anti-miscegenation laws could have prohibited Asians marrying whites. Technically all such laws have been illegal since 1968, but obviously this JoP lives in another era.

Just like people categorize Obama as black, even though he is half white, the groom is not pure "black" and is more Creole, than anything else. I finally got to see a pic of Mr. McKay, and he looks like the average Louisiana creole (a once highly respected group in La., before the feds dropped in, and decided to call them "black").

So what does this have to do with the price of tomatoes? This: America STILL categorizes a person as black, if they have any Negro blood in them. Now why is that?

Yes, what is your point. Where are you going with this. You are going off on a whole other topic that is not the issue here. The bottom line McKay must have identified (and the key word is identify), and there fore that idiot jop based his judgment. And Creoles are still Creole and identify as such but some Creoles identify as black also. People can idenitfy as they want.

Anyhoo, all this hoopla about this racist only confirms what I have been saying about the South, no matter how progressive the South is, it is still the South with all their racists and KKK hiding behind sheets and JD degrees. Do not think for one minute, this was the first time this man pulled this stunt; it is only now that someone stepped up and and went to the media about it. Good for them. The Southern way for both black and whites and other is to not rock the boat and in doing so, they are all complicit in perpetrating 50s and 60s mentality on racial issues. I was in the South this summer. I called my family out who live in rural areas like this place in Louisiana on letting racist incidents go on, letting racists say and do anything with impunity. All I hear is "You don't live here"; "That's the way it is", We have to live here." BS. And then they complain among themselves. The biggest mistake is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Call out the racist behavior that has been allowed. It's almost 2010 people!

just did not get an opportunity to rule on mixed marriages, one way or another, until 1967 (not 1968). That does not mean, though, that the laws were constitutional before that. The Fourteenth Amendment was always the same. The laws always violated it.

breaking the law.

to urge it - as if the decision to oust dismiss the individual from his post in some way be problematic? He, above all kites and crows, would understand that somethings are not negotiable. Period.

The article cited in the OP does not say that he ran as a Republican for 30 years, only that he is a Republican now, which is true.

Here is evidence that he did not always run as a Republican, courtesy of the Louisiana Secretary of State:

http://www400.sos.louisiana.gov/cgibin?rqstyp=comh1&rqsdta=26510100

It looks like our party nominating a mixed-race candidate for President pushed him over the edge.

never got around to changing his affiliation to Republican.

I lived in Alamogordo, NM at the time. There were Wallace bumper stickers EVERYWHERE.

Things are different in the Deep South. I don't pretend to understand the politics there.

That guy has always referred mixed-race couples to another Justice of the Peace to get married.