Well, it is practically peripheral to my usual areas of inquiry, but I find myself gawking, spectator-like, at the Louisiana interracial marriage hoopla. Long story short: a Justice of the Peace declined to perform the marriage ceremony for an "interracial couple," citing the notion that such marriages don't last and are therefore bad for children. The headline--that he denied them a marriage license--doesn't make any sense to me (because you don't go to a JotP to get a marriage license, or is it different in Lousiana?).

Anyway, I'm still waiting for a Magistrate in Pennsylvania to put someone in the stocks for adultery, or a Judge in Arizona to order someone branded for cattle-thievery, or something. Because that's about what it would take to top this weird story.

Of course it's no fun for the couple involved, obviously this is not a fight anyone expects to be fighting in the United States in the 21st century! So, my sympathies to them. But the CNN article left me with some questions that I felt a good journalist would have answered. The best I could find was this article.

My most burning question, of course, remains unanswered, but the clue quote "I've been a justice of the peace for 34 years" gets me pretty close. d^_^b

That he claims to have declined to perform the ceremony, rather than actually denied anyone a marriage license, is also revealing. It's a little funny because frankly, it's his job and I suspect that his refusal to perform the ceremony is plenty to get him in hot water. But CNN's headline "Interracial couple in Louisiana denied marriage license" (notice they didn't even bother with the customary "allegedly") is a little more sensational than "Old man declines to perform interracial marriage ceremony."

But let's face it--only a little.

I don't know. The predictable tendency of news sources to exaggerate stories and omit interesting facts shouldn't really surprise me. And even assuming the Justice of the Peace's side of the story (which, as he is the accused, we probably ought to do until someone proves otherwise), his behavior is beyond the modern pale. Which I'm intrigued to discover kind of undermines my outrage; declining to perform a marriage ceremony because you think the marriage won't last is so... almost quaint, in the face of a 40% divorce rate, don't you think? It's bafflingly comical. The whole thing is just so bizarre I'm too busy chuckling to really get mad at this poor Justice of the Peace, who has poked his finger into the most obvious wasp's nest our culture could hope to provide! It's probably uncharitable of me, but I'm envisioning some doddering old fellow who, Rip-Van-Winkle-like, just entirely missed the 1960s.

I guess, if there were even the tiniest chance that this behavior would go unaddressed by the community in question, maybe I'd see more need for rage. But I have no doubt the couple's grievances will be addressed, and they are probably enjoying their 15 minutes of fame to boot. And of course there's a longer entry to be had here, regarding the current state of the race conversation in America. Perhaps another time.

For now, I'm going to go embroider some scarlet letters. I have a feeling the market for those will boom any second. d^_~b