Groups upset man wouldn't marry interracial couple
NEW ORLEANS — At least two civil and constitutional rights groups in Louisiana are calling for a justice of the peace to resign after he refused to issue a marriage license for an interracial couple.
The head of the American Civil Liberties Union in Louisiana and the Center for Constitutional Rights and Justice said Keith Bardwell should quit immediately.
Bardwell is a white justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish in southeastern Louisiana. He refused earlier this month to issue a license or marry Beth Humphrey, who is white, and Terence McKay, who is black.
Bardwell said he always asks if a couple is interracial and, if they are, refers them to another justice of the peace.
He says children of such unions face troubling futures.
