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Meet Keith Bardwell, an elected justice of the peace from the state of Louisiana:

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

“There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Bardwell said. “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”

If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all…

“I try to treat everyone equally…”

I’m in an interracial relationship.  I love my partner with all of my heart and soul.  To me, she exudes an uncommon grace, civility, intelligence and preternatural inclination to love her fellow man and woman.  To me, she is the essence of love.  My relationship is not to be bound in some rough-hewn package, and determined on a whim by some white judge, or some black activist.  It is the manifestation of a love borne from God’s grace.  A treasure only shared by those lucky enough possess it.  She is my link to planes of joy unparalleled. To forsake that, or her, is to endure a pain I could not bear.  And yet I can’t help but think of Keith Bardwell, and what he has accomplished in his career.  To think some crotchety bigoted relic from Jim Crow days, would have any say in whom I choose to make my partner for life, is beyond the pale of presumptive arrogance.

The term miscegenation, was a word invented by American journalists to discredit the Abolitionist movement, by stirring up debate over the prospect of white-black intermarriage after the abolition of slavery.  It was first coined in 1863  during the American Civil War. It wasn’t until 1967, over one hundred years later, that anti-miscegenation laws were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  Those discriminatory laws were nullified in fifteen states, and it’s a word that is rarely uttered today.  But negative sentiments that supported those laws still remain strong in some quarters today.

I’m probably more troubled than most about this Louisiana marriage case.  How enlightened have we truly become, if  some Americans are not wholly accepted as couples no matter their skin color?  Is it better for couples of the same skin color to wed?  Is the church full of more approving eyes, because they are comfortable knowing that this marriage will last a lifetime since the participants are of one race? By what right do any of you determine the strength of my union with my beloved, based solely upon our skin differences?  What validates that relationship more than mine?  By whose right is my relationship a sin, punishable by never knowing the joys of consummating our love? Whom or what gives anyone the right to legislate love?

As an American, I recognize the beauty of our First Amendment right to free speech.  Its application can sometimes carry the shock of a punch to the kidneys for those that don’t agree with what is said.  This is different.  This is a man making his own blanketed moral supposition, not interpreting the law.  This is a man depriving me of my most intimate basic right as a citizen and a human being.  There is no racial identity litmus test provided to couples hoping to join together as one.  There should be none asked for either.  I am a believer in the real tenets of our democracy.  I have faith that the system is designed to foster happiness for its people, not divisiveness.  I believe that love and marriage between mature, consenting adults– are sacrosanct tenets of life, made possible by our creator.   Those tenets must be respected and allowed to flourish, in order for our society to remain strong around the family structure.  Keith Bardwell was entrusted to safeguard these principles.  He failed because of his own misguided prejudices.  I feel for him, and his lonely insular world.  His bigotry his festered for so long, it’s caused him to lose sight of the true nature of marriage.

“I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom.”

If only you showed as much deference for the man and woman you refused to marry, as you do with your prized sanitation facilities…

Or perhaps my woman and I , along with millions of others, have not yet reached the level of toilet status in your eyes.

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7 Responses to “The Melting Of Tolerance, The Tolerance Of Bigotry”

1. Meg Gerrish says:

   October 24, 2009 at 9:52 pm

   My mid-’60s introduction to The South was being driven to my grandparents’ retirement home in Cumming, ‘Nuff Said.

   On the trip from the airport, my grandfather, a gentleman with a Live And Let Live attitude shared this: “We now live where two men were hung for being in the county after dark. Because they were dark. Right down that hill, there. Welcome to Cumming.”

   His anxiety or anger or confusion at living amongst people who would kill someone for being “the wrong color” purely dripped from his words. I was a teenager. I didn’t catch nuance. Clearly, he was unhappy. But my grandparents lived in Cumming because it’s where my grandmother wanted to live because it’s where her sisters lived, and Orv made sure we understood the ugly side of the “friendly” neighbors.

   Matthew? The reason this story made the headlines is because it was unusual. That says something. In the “real world,” no one cares about the color of your skin or the color of your partner’s skin or how those skins combine.

   In the real world.
   Among rational people.
   Among people with healthy good sense.

   Truly? That’s most of the people.

   But the real world includes people who are idiots and who will always find a reason to hate or interfere or intrude in other people’s lives; for them skin color is simply the target, not the real goal. They’re hateful, pure and simple. For them, skin color is an age-tested excuse to purge their own anxieties. Doesn’t really hold up and little comfort if you’re the bullseye, but there’s little to do about those people except avoid them.

   Carry on, Matthew, you and your partner. Carry on.

   Reply
2. C Smith says:

   October 25, 2009 at 8:13 am

   When I first read this article I pictured Matthew checking to see if any comments were being made and”bowed-up” (southern slang) to retaliate. The lack of a comment and now Meg”s comment tells me what I have seen evolving in the South “real world rational people with healthy good sence” was not some fantasy but part of todays life. I am very quick to defind the “South” especially when we are characterized as characters in the movie “Deliverance”. Living mainly in Georgia for the past 65 years I’ve lived through many changes and hopefully human enough to accept the good and reject the bad and insightful enough to recognize the difference.

   Reply
3. Gita says:

   October 25, 2009 at 11:38 am

   The actions of this nobody justice of the peace in a no-name backwater of Louisiana made headlines ’round the world. It was discussed on satellite radio talk shows. My friends in Canada emailed me with comments (scornful and disbelieving). Bardwell has been mocked on MSNBC, NPR radio and a hundred other news outlets. Humans, black and white, reacted to this news just as you have. Now if we could just figure out why marriage is of interest to bigots we could solve this painful problem for same-gender couples.

   Reply
4. Brenden says:

   October 26, 2009 at 11:08 pm

   I feel like we’ve all learned that calling everyone a racist is not productive (Boyd, Cliff, et. al.). Hopefully the angry left will learn that if they want to advocate for Marxism, they must do so on the economic merits, not the ethnic merits (which there are none). When ethnicity is confused with idiocy and Marxism for political gain, no one wins.

   Reply
5. Cliff Green says:

   October 27, 2009 at 9:06 pm

   Brenden: I have never called everyone a racist, nor have I ever advocated Marxism. But on your behalf, I will defend the JP in LA: My God! If he had let those people marry, they may have produced something that looks like Halle Berry. And Lord knows, we don’t need nothin’ that ugly running around.

   Reply
6. Matthew Wright says:

   October 27, 2009 at 10:43 pm

   Brendan,

   Thanks for your insight.

   Reply
7. Keith Graham says:

   November 4, 2009 at 1:08 pm

   Just a footnote to this story, but I suspect most people were happy to see the news reported today that this justice of the peace has resigned. The widespread reaction to this incident showed (again) that the vast majority of Americans have moved way beyond this kind of intolerance. The fact that both Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu called for his ouster demonstrates, too, that support for racial tolerance is not a partisan, but a bi-partisan, issue.

   Reply

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