Justice of the peace resigns after flap over refusal to marry interracial couple

Nola.com ^ | 11.3.09

[trumandogz]

A Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry a couple because the bride was white and groom was black resigned Tuesday.

Keith Bardwell acknowledged he routinely recused himself from marrying interracial couples.

Keith Bardwell, who is white, quit the post with a one-sentence statement to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne and no explanation of his decision: "I do hereby resign the office of Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, effective November 3, 2009."

[trumandogz]

More Good News.

[Marie2]

I am glad he resigned. His behavior was bizarre.

I know an interracial couple with 8 kids. Those kids appear to be happy, well adjusted, and just fine.

[grey_whiskers]

Let's get an interracial couple (white man, black woman) to The Irrev. ("God D@mn America!") Wright's First Marxist Church of Hatred.

See if he'll marry them.

Cheers!

[DesertRhino]

The judge was a lifelong Democrat until ‘08. The keep forgetting THAT little detail.

[Jeff Chandler]

Why in the world would someone refuse to marry an interracial couple? Unless he’s an idiot. The Justice of the Peace, that is.

[publana]

I think you nailed it. Good that he’s gone.

[deannadurbin]

He was a strange one but I am not sure he should have had to resign over this. People should be allowed their own personal convictions, just like docs and nurses in Catholic hospitals should be able to refuse to do abortions if they feel it’s against God, even if the gov’t passes laws forcing them to do them.

[trumandogz]

People should be allowed their own personal convictions, just like docs and nurses in Catholic hospitals should be able to refuse to do abortions if they feel it’s against God...

No, if one is going to take the responsibility in a community to marry people, then those with that responsibility must follow local, state and federal laws.

And if you grant doctors and nurses the right to refuse treatment on a patient, there will be those that refuse to treat, smokers, the obese or someone of a different race.

[eclecticEel]

What was that, like two weeks, and they couldn’t even get around to firing the guy. It was obvious that’s what he wanted, give it to him already. Or was there some crazy union contract that made it so very difficult.

[wardaddy]

one guy like this in the entire nation...and you found him to trumpet here....more bad white folks from TD on his crusade

lol...do you guys ever get tired of this..what is your real point here TD?...conservatism or finding white bogeymen or calling folks racists or anti-semite and bashing southerners?

you live for this like Chet lives for pit bulls

and what if all I did was look for bad stuff about blacks to post?

would that be cool too...it's not like there's a shortage or something.

do you really think whites are more racist to blacks than blacks are to whites?

i sure don't ..not today, freepers like you are still living like it's Brown versus Board of Education daze....you need to move on...the new bogeyman ain't melanin challenged...this oddball notwithstanding (if you don't cotton to interracial marriage then don't be a JP)

interracial marriage around here is pretty uncommon...fat ugly white baby mamas with multiple illegitimate half black kids and no baby daddy in sight is 99% of it here

and Sherlock, that is a far greater problem than this very rare dirt you managed to find to preen over

in the age of a "black" president openly hostile to whites (and Israel btw) this sort of very rare overt white racialism is very stale and almost insignificant except for folks like you who get off on exposing crackers acting insensitive to modern sensibilities

[Jeff Chandler]

And if you grant doctors and nurses the right to refuse treatment on a patient, there will be those that refuse to treat, smokers, the obese or someone of a different race.

That's different. A Justice of the Peace must follow the law he has sworn to uphold. Doctors and nurses are private citizens, and should be only bound by whatever contracts they have signed.

So as abhorrent has it may seem, a doctor or a nurse should be free to refuse service to anyone.

It's the difference between the public and the private sector.

Of course, this is all based upon a hypothetical free society, where people in the private sector aren't forced to work under threat of prosecution.

[Jeff Chandler]

one guy like this in the entire nation...and you found him to trumpet here....more bad white folks from TD on his crusade

Hey, somebody has to help out the Marxist Media.

[trumandogz]

Hey, I am from the south and have a few kin folks running around Hammond.

But this Bardwell guy has not only caught flak from me, but from many other Freepers who have posted threads concerning this issue.

As far as Bardwell goes, he is a Cracker POS and I am happy and actually a bit surprised that he resigned.

[wardaddy]

this sort of thing has always been en vogue here for some freepers...race bait basically..10 years ago memphis belle (since banned) excoriated me for questioning her sanity when she said the only way to resolve white racism was for whites to interbreed blacks to bring them up and to wipe out white superiority....and she had no clue how condescending that was to blacks btw...hell, she thought it was “fall on yer sword for mankind” moment rather than the blacks are incapable on their own moment that it was.

you have to wonder what drives them to look to find dirt on white folks at every turn and yet scream racism (or some other -ism) whenever it suits them

how many conservatives today are so obsessed with this PC need to preen self righteous indignation over white “racism” yet ignore what's really going on now?

some of these guys collude...to be fair I can't say TD is part of that...who knows....all of FR's primary baiters could be one guy in a little basement with multiple IPs......he's it just goes to show opinions are as much about who folks are and where they have been than what they believe....this is personal for the agitators, not ideological so much.

myself included to be fair

maybe I'm too old but these youngsters don't know real racism...racism was once just white supremacy enforced if need be violently....now it is anything....like this JP...don't like interracial marriage personally then you must be a racist....I don't agree with that loose definition but at the same time the JP shoulda upheld his legal obligation or quit..as he did

[wardaddy]

You preen out of one side of your mouth all this noble self righteous indignation about whites behaving badly over the poor downtrodden black man TD and then in the next breath call folks “cracker POS”...a race based derogatory

since you are so obsessed with prejudice based on skin color then why use a race based slur to describe a white person with whom you disagree

you disagree with Obama quite a bit I hope...

do you refer to him as a “Nigra (or other race based slur)POS”?

or Jeremiah Wright?

or Al Sharpton?

or William Jefferson?

and so forth

TD...having southern kin by blood or marriage does not make you one of us...not that you care I reckon..lol..since we are “crackers and whatnot”....

[Jeff Chandler]

the JP shoulda upheld his legal obligation or quit..as he did

Absolutely. At the same time, although I personally would find it disgusting for him or her to refuse a person of a particular race, a doctor in a free country should be free to pick and choose his patients.

[wardaddy]

I had a doctor refuse me once over a test result disagreement with one of his staff

I just went to another one....fotunately Nashville has a few

my wife will only accept male Obstetricians

[trumandogz]

TD...having southern kin by blood or marriage does not make you one of us...not that you care I reckon..lol..since we are “crackers and whatnot”....

I grew-up in South Louisiana and have many old school relatives that would agree with Bardwell. However, my immediate family and I also had the opportunity to live in South America, the Middle East and the Great State of Texas and our prospective on race is much different than my extended family back in Louisiana.

And to anyone who is either educated or lives outside of Louisiana, Bardwell is a disgrace and an embarrassment not only to Louisiana but to humanity.

And yes, Bardwell is a cracker, just like some of my Louisiana relatives who objected to my being married to a Jewish woman.

[BnBlFlag]

TD is a Carpetbagger living in the Dallas area IIRC.

[BnBlFlag]

Sorry TD, you’re not a Carpetbagger. You’re a Scalawag.

[trumandogz]

Me a Carpetbagger?

No way. Born way down South and raised in New Orleans, Houston and the Middle East and educated in Austin.

i have homes in Texas and in New Orleans.

[wardaddy]

You referring to someone you disagree with by using a derogatory about what their race is could be construed by some to not be distinguishable in character to what you so loathe in Bardwell.

You bring up Jews and the south often to vindicate your hostile attitude to us here...might I suggest you read up a bit (jews never has it so good before as they did in the Old South)

Written by a southern Jewish lawyer in Charleston:

btw...i lived and married in latin America....you know quite well that race and shade about "Pretos" and "Indians" is very marked down there in all but the most cosmopolitan locales and then only if the darker or redder individual has money or fame are they accepted.

[trumandogz]

I do not loathe Bardwell, I simply loathe what he stands for and all those who agree with his point of view.

The South has worked too hard and come too far over the last 40 years to have an elected official like Bardwell.

And I am not at all hostile towards the South as I maintain a home in NOLA and never really feel at home until I am Uptown and hear that St. Charles Street Car rumble past.

Texas simple provides a means where both my wife and I can make a good living, my kids can be educated, I won’t be hassled by every politician and I can ride my bike in the hill country.

[Wallop the Cat]

I would agree but for the fact he is a public official performing official business of the state. A physician working in a public health clinic cannot and should not be allowed to pick and choose her patients based on race, gender, etc.

[Graybeard58]

We also have posters who search out and post anything that reflects negatively on cops. They seem to live for it.
Some cops bad equals all cops bad to them.

[wardaddy]

The South has worked too hard and come too far over the last 40 years

but are we better off?...using race as a continual prism misses the bigger picture which is that the black community has deteriorated and that it affects all of us.

and to claim it is all the Dem's fault gives blacks a nice Get Out of jail Free card for refusing to keep their communites and families intact

I have been to NOLA more than any other city except where I was raised and knew it from 1962 or so on.....proof is in the pudding. There was a time as a white kid I could go anywhere in NOLA even at night safe. To think that now is laughable. That is not progress.

you're younger, it's all you've ever known...this new world order in southern urban cities

Race is simply not the issue by which we or our history should be defined. It cripples us. We are hardly different than anywhere else in the world where folks bond by likeness.

[trumandogz]

I understand that many families and cites in the South were destroyed by 1960’s social programs. However, many of those social programs, such as school desegregation would not of been necessary if the political establishment in the South had not adhered to their segregationist policies.

Instead, those leaders should have moved to include all the people in their cities in the educational, business, social and political processes and not excluded people due to their color.