2009 Louisiana interracial marriage incident

Earl Keith Bardwell (born 1953, Ponchatoula, Louisiana), of Robert, Louisiana, is Justice of the Peace for the 8th Ward of Louisiana's Tangipahoa Parish in the United States.^[1] Bardwell received international media attention in 2009 when he refused to officiate the wedding of an interracial couple.

He was first elected to that office in 1975 as a Democrat. In 2007 Bardwell sought and obtained a legal opinion from then attorney general Charles C. Foti Jr. barring erection of a fence across Sims Creek.^[2] Bardwell switched to the Republicans before qualifying for his current term in 2008.^[3] Otherwise, prior to 2009, Bardwell's service as a justice of the peace seemed routine, and he indicated plans to leave office when his term closes at the end of 2014.^[4]

Bardwell is handicapped, born with arms that are shorter than normal and without legs.^[5]

In 2009 Bardwell came into controversy by refusing to officiate a civil wedding for an interracial black-white couple. The story was first published by newswriter Don Ellzey of the Daily Star (Hammond).^[6] Within a day the story was on the front page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and was circulating in the Associated Press.^[7] Increasingly the story took on a life of its own,^[8] including Yobie Benjamin's question in the San Francisco Chronicle on whether elected officials may deny legal marriage to same-sex couples in jurisdictions which permit it.^[9]

Bardwell's explicit justification for declining to officiate the wedding was that, as a matter of his consistent policy, he is concerned for the children of black-white interracial marriages, that they are, in his perception, accepted by neither black nor white society.^[10] Bardwell, who is caucasian, insisted that he is "not a racist" and claimed to have "piles and piles" of black friends who use his bathroom.^[11] Bardwell also claimed that "99 percent of the time" interracial marriages are between a black man and a white woman, and he used the adjective "confusing" to describe this alleged disparity. ^[12] According to Tara Bennett, Bardwell was advised by an attorney to say that he was "busy" on days when he was requested to officiate interracial weddings, "but Bardwell refuses to lie and says [that] he will step down" if obliged to change his policy.^[13]

Nonetheless, in the 1967 case Loving v. Virginia the Supreme Court of the United States had ruled that state law prohibitions on interracial marriage were unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana (ACLU), via attorney Katie Schwartzman, cited that ruling and said that Bardwell knowingly broke the law. Calling for Bardwell's removal, the ACLU requested that the Louisiana Judiciary Commission investigate Bardwell's conduct.^[14] The interracial couple filed a civil rights lawsuit with the United States Federal Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The suit named Beth Bardwell, Keith Bardwell's wife, as co-defendant and sought a monetary settlement including restitution for emotional distress and mental anguish. Lawyer Laura Catlett filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs.^[15]

The interracial couple—Beth Humphrey (age 30 at the time), a Caucasian woman, and Terence McKay (age 32), an African-American man—went instead, on Bardwell's referral, to the neighbouring 6th Ward's justice of the peace, Terri M. Crosby, who officiated the wedding.

On the day the story broke, President Barack Obama, himself the child of an interracial marriage, was at nearby University of New Orleans for a much-heralded "townhall meeting" concerning recovery from the Hurricane Katrina disaster.^[16] When asked about Bardwell's statements, Bill Quigley (Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights) and White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton said that they had reason to believe a biracial child could do well.^[17]

State and local public officials' reaction was uniformly negative. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal called for Bardwell to be fired: Jindal's office released a statement calling Bardwell's refusal to officiate the civil wedding "a clear violation of constitutional rights and federal and state law" and urged that "[d]isciplinary action should be taken immediately—including the revoking of his license."^[18] The Daily Star editorialized that "Bardwell's personal beliefs are his own, but his responsibility as an elected official is to provide services to the public" and called on him to resign.^[19] Front-page articles in the Daily Star reported the disavowal of Bardwell by state, parish, and municipal officials^[20] and summarized the generally frowning worldwide attention.^[21]

On 2009 October 19, Bardwell appeared on the CBS Early Show where he was interviewed by Harry Smith. Bardwell apologized to the interracial couple but maintained that his decision to refer the couple to another justice of the peace was "helpful" to the couple.^[22] On the next day, October 20, a talk program on New Orleans' WWL Radio 870 AM discussed an informal internet poll in which a plurality of respondents preferred that no action be taken against Bardwell.^[23] An internet survey by the Daily Star attracted prevailing responses that Bardwell should resign.^[24]

• Anti-miscegenation laws
• Multiracial American
• Race in the United States