One Conscientious Objector
October 20, 2009
Keith Bardwell, the Louisiana justice of the peace who made national news for refusing to marry an interracial couple, continues to be disarmingly honest in his statements about the incident. His candor and lack of racial animosity have probably made a few people think twice and the story has briefly reopened an ancient theme that is now rarely discussed in public.
“It’s kind of hard to apologize for something that you really and truly feel down in your heart you haven’t done wrong,” Bardwell told a radio reporter over the weekend. He refused to officiate at a ceremony involving a black man and a white woman.
He said he does not approve of interracial marriage because of its effect on children.
“I’ve had countless numbers of people that was born in that situation, and that they claim that the blacks or the whites didn’t accept the children,” Bardwell told CBS. “And I didn’t want to put the children in that position.”
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