Brew News: Justice Of The Peace Lives in 1950's...

"NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Civil rights advocates in eastern Louisiana are calling for a justice of the peace of Tangipahoa Parish to resign after he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.

Terence McKay claims a justice of the peace refused to give him and his white girlfriend a marriage license.

"He's an elected public official and one of his duties is to marry people. He doesn't have the right to say he doesn't believe in it," Patricia Morris, president of the NAACP branch of Tangipahoa Parish, located near the Mississippi line, said Thursday.
"If he doesn't do what his position calls for him to do, he should resign from that position."
The demands for Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, to step down came after he wouldn't issue a marriage license to Beth Humphrey, 30, and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond.
"I was just really shocked, because he's an elected official," Humphrey said. Bardwell didn't immediately return calls from CNN on Thursday.
However, Bardwell told Hammond's Daily Star newspaper that he was concerned for the children who might be born of the relationship and that, in his experience, most interracial marriages don't last.


"I'm not a racist," Bardwell told the newspaper. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children."
Bardwell, stressing that he couldn't personally endorse the marriage, said his wife referred the couple to another justice of the peace."



Just...wow. (I hope he wore a Groombandana- somethin' with sparkles)