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1 Gerald Reynolds, Letter: Commission Chair Gerald Reynolds to Hugh Collins: Racial Discrimination by Louisiana Justice of the Peace [i] (2009)

handle is hein.civil/usccvf0001 and id is 1 raw text is: UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS 624 NINTH STREET, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20425 www.usccr.gov October 22, 2009 VIA FAX & U.S. MAIL Hugh M. Collins, Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer Judiciary Commission of Louisiana 400 Royal Street, Suite 1190 New Orleans, LA 70130-8 101 Dear Dr. Collins: It is a sad day indeed when we find ourselves, in the year 2009, compelled to write to you about news articles that suggest one of Louisiana's judicial officers has engaged in invidious racial discrimination of the kind that was declared unconstitutional over forty years ago. We are referring, of course, to recent media accounts of the refusal by a Tangipahoa Parish justice of the peace-Keith Bardwell-to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.I In an interview with the Associated Press, Bardwell explained his denial by stating, I just don't believe in mixing the races that way. In a separate interview with the Hammond Daily Star Online, Bardwell called interracial couples consisting of a black man and a white woman confusing and cited a concern for the children of interracial marriages-I don't do interracial marriages because I don't want to put children in a situation they didn't bring on themselves. In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer. He further admitted in those interviews to having denied marriage licenses to at least four other interracial couples over the past two-and-a-half years. In the seminal case, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all legal restrictions on the ability of men and women of different races to marry one another. Interracial marriages now constitute some 5.5%2 of all marriages in the United States, and there are now approximately 3.4 million biracial children in the country.3 The President and Commander in Chief of the United States is biracial. In the face of such long-established and clear legal precedent and assuming 'See e.g., Don Ellzey, JP refuses to marry couple, HAMMOND DAILY STAR ONLINE, Oct. 15, 2009, available at: http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/2009/10/15/top stories/8847.txt; Mary Foster, Interracial couple denied marriage license in La., YAHOO!NEWS, Oct. 15, 2009, available at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091015/ap- on re us/us interracial rebuff/print; Samira Simone, Interracial couple in Louisiana denied marriage license, CNN.COM INTERNATIONAL, Oct. 15, 2009, available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/10/16/louisiana.interracial.marriage/. 2 See MICHAEL J. ROSENFELD, THE AGE OF INDEPENDENCE: INTERRACIAL UNIONS, SAME-SEX UNIONS AND THE CHANGING AMERICAN FAMILY (Harvard University Press) (2007). The data behind Rosenfeld's figure is available at http://www.stanford.eduimrosenfe/Rosenfeld pct interracial.xls. 3 U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, 2008 AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY, http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable? bm=y&- state=dt&-ds name=ACS 2008 1YR GOO &-CONTEXT=dt&-mt name=ACS 2008 lYR G2000 B01001G&- redoLog=false&-reo id=O1000US&-format=&- lang=en (last accessed Oct. 22, 2009).

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