**UPDATE** This guy said it better than I did with a single image.
I didn’t really think any headline could surprise me anymore. We do some crazy stuff in this country. Then I saw this.
Interracial couple denied marriage license
Why does everything always have to be about race in the South? Seriously.
Everything.
Even my 17 year old cousin makes a racial distinction when she talks about people. It’s not “that guy” or “that girl” it’s that “black guy” or “black girl.” If there’s no qualifier, it’s generally assumed that the person in question is white.
It’s serious culture shock after having lived in Denver for so long. Race is pretty much a non-issue there. People are just people. There aren’t black people and white people and brown people. There are people. Who happen to be black or white or brown.
So then I see this headline. Which speaks of the greatest sin of all.* Interracial marriage. God forbid this justice of the peace actually do his job.
A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.
I’m sorry, since when is that his job? To assume that an interracial marriage won’t last and the children will be harmed somehow is completely and totally baffling to me.
Are we really trying to redefine marriage from “two people” to “one man and one woman” to “one man and one woman of the same race”?
Really?
I hope the ACLU succeeds in getting this guy in trouble.
On a side note, I found this quote to be particularly funny, given how it’s completely been thrown out of the window:
“It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009,” said American Civil Liberties Union
of Louisiana attorney Katie Schwartzman. “The Supreme Court ruled as far back as 1963 that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry.”
I do have to wonder why the ACLU thinks the government is going to pay attention to that when clearly they take pride in telling gay people who they can and can’t marry.
*Funny story about interracial relationships. I told my stepdad that there had been a guy I was interested in from a few months back. The next morning at 8am he calls me to wake me up and goes, “I only have one question. The guy you mentioned last night… he’s not black is he?” Yes folks, I mentioned a crush in passing and I get a frantic call the next morning. Isn’t life in the South grand sometimes?
