Louisiana Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell said he refused to grant an interracial couple a marriage license, but don't get the wrong idea: "I'm not a racist," Bardwell claims. Heavens, no! What could possibly give anyone that idea?

Perhaps, it was this: "I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom." Or, perhaps it was this: "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." Yes, won't somebody please think of the children! Quickly, now, before they are forced to accept fates as, oh, say, the popular leader of a global superpower.

As the child of an interracial marriage -- and someone who isn't suffering anymore than is usual for a girl wearing soggy boots and a damp skirt after being caught in this afternoon's rain -- I'm always annoyed when someone tries to pin their own anxieties about multiracial children onto children instead of onto themselves.

What's really appalling though is that Bardwell has done this before -- and without being removed as a justice of the peace. Bardwell told the AP that he's refused to marry four interracial couples in the last 2 1/2 years. Bardwell also claims that at least one office of Louisiana's state government had been made aware of his refusal years ago.

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