PSA: Bigot defends marriage

From the AP: Keith Barwell, justice of the peace, refuses to perform the marriage ceremony of an interracial couple. Here are the excuses he gives:

"Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

'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.'

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said."

He says he's concerned for the children that might come from an interracial marriage, and that they won't be accepted by either black or white communities.

Here are some better possible excuses for this guy, just off the top of my head:

Maybe Bardwell has never followed up on any of the same-race marriages he's performed, and so doesn't know that about half of ALL marriages end in divorce.

Maybe he doesn't know that people are still physically able to have children even when they're not married.

Maybe he's never, ever thought that it might be attitudes like his that cause children born of interracial couples to have more trouble than other kids.

Maybe it's never occurred to him that his attitudes are exactly the sort that might unduly strain the relationship of an interracial couple, possibly causing eventual break-up.

As far as how he comports himself and speaks in public, maybe he's never been told that using the term "piles and piles" for his black friends implies that he's somehow put them all in a giant heap in his backyard, and that this is bad.

Maybe he doesn't know that not believing "in mixing races that way" is almost the textbook definition of "racist."

Maybe he should check up on how many of those couples he lets use his bathroom after they let him marry them are actually puking their guts out in there.

I'm betting it's not a question of whether he'd ever marry a (same-race) same-sex couple -- though one would almost expect this guy to decide to only marry homosexuals, citing the fact that he doesn't believe "in mixing sexes that way."

That might actually make some sense.