Hammond justice refuses to marry an interracial couple

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WTF?

You might be a racist if... it even occurs to you that bathroom use has a racial consideration to it.

Ok, maybe I'm naiive -- maybe where he lives the racial-bathroom issue is on a lot of people's minds. But it still seems weird.

Exactly. The guy's a racist and he acted on it, plain and simple.

This whole thing reminds of the quote,

I suspect this comes from the fact that bathrooms used to be publicly segregated; there was a "white" bathroom and a "colored" bathroom, much like there were sections on the bus and different schools. And since he probably doesn't own a bus or operate a school, bathroom was the only thing that fit.

Yeah, but he sounded like he was talking about his bathroom at home. Those weren't legally segregated, presumably because a black person would never get in the house in the first place. That makes me think he's not talking about history so much as, "they shouldn't be in the house (or the bathroom), but I let them in there anyway, no matter how distressing that is."

Great line on Leno, about the kids...

"He [the judge] said he was worried about what people would think about the mixed-race kids. Yeah, when they grow up to become President, or win the Masters, or get an Oscar..."

I didn't know a JP could issue a marriage LICENSE in the first place.

Did he refuse to perform a marriage ceremony?

If so then he is within his right to do that.

A Catholic Priest can perform a marriage ceremony but he doesn't HAVE to. If the couple are divorced or non-catholic or gay or whatever then he can refuse to perform the ceremony. Someone else can do it but he is not obliged to do so if he doesn't want to.

But that's actually illegal.



My thoughts exactly.

Not in Alabama.

While the law does give a Justice of the Peace the right to marry people, it is not an obligation of the Office. They may perform, none, some, or any.

It is the same as a Lawyer, they may or may not take any case.

Churchs will often refuse to marry people who are not both of their faith.

No one has said they cannot marry, but since a large part of the local population does marry within their own degree of color, it is nothing more than a business issue, the loss of potential future business.

It is the same for a Lawyer, taking an unpopular case that will alienate the public, or the local rich and powerful, would end their career.

Once the Church controlled marriage, so it was refused to non members, the damned.

Civil Marriage changed that. This right was granted to a Justice of the Peace. Marriage outside of church rules. A Right but not an obligation. They must follow the law, age, martial status, degree of blood relation. That part is certified by a Clerk of Court who issues a marrage license.

The third class that may perform marriages are Judges, Legal Marriage.

She is fourteen, he is sixteen, they are neighbors, the baby is due in six months, both their parents come to court. They can be Emancipated, given adult rights, and then married by a Judge.

Some would have a law that puts him in jail, have the baby born out of marrage, cause problems between neighbors and grandparents, and then all three burn in hell for all eturnity.

The Law is not an absolute, it is a guide to human behavior.

She is going for a Degree in Race Politics, and seems to have shopped for the one person she could exploit for a press release.

My view is he will get re-elected.

A well-raised point, ViperaAspis.
As I said before, this kind of crapola is what
Loving vs. Virginia is meant to stop.

All things being equal topic

This is a tough one. Both sides make interesting arguments here. But an adult cannot make decisions for another adult, based on his own experiences, when the law states otherwise. (As for such a marriage not succeeding, does this judge get brownie points for each marriage that does not end in divorce after a specified time? Marriages often end because of other factors, and I have a suspicion the learned judge in this case knows this.)

In addition, skewed ages and different skin hues are not comparable issues, or logically synonymous. (Two such age disparate people who want to get hitched had better come up with more than one explanation that makes sense.)

In Canada, the marrying of different ethnic (including "race") groups is not an issue. The skewed age thing would be suspect, due to the imbalance of experience/judgment of the 14 year old vis-a-vis the 50 year old.

Making a name? What this woman is doing is nothing new or exciting.

Perhaps this Justice ought to to be sent out to pasture, along with all the other dinosaurs. He is way behind the times!

In later CNN news hype, "He has refused to give them a Marraige License", but another Justice did and married them.

They should hire people who can read, who know common law. The only person who can issue a marriage license, here and I think everywhere, is The Clerk of Court. They are the only people with the records showing that they are not close kin, and are single enough to marry.

What next, he refused to issue a Birth Certificate, barrring them from having children?

This J.P. clearly exceeded his authority when he would not issue the license. If the two people showed they were old enough to be married, did not have a venarial disease and were not closely related contrary to state law, then he was required to issue the license.

Now if he had merely refused to perform the marriage ritual that would be another thing entirely. The J.P. is an officer of the law and is required to execute state law, while he holds the office. His personal feelings in this regard are irrelevant. He was required to issue the license if all the legally required conditions were met.

He should be canned forthwith.

ruveyn

Now, here is an amusing little site i found while doing research on ghettos and their causes. You can browse through a few cities and i reckon that the data is "fairly" recent, like 2000. I doubt it has changed drastically in the recent years...Er i forgot about hurricane Katrina, my bad.... This map may not be as relevant but it's still interesting.

http://www.umich.edu/~lawrace/citymaps. ... rleans.htm

Governor Bob Jindall of Louisiana has asked that this JP be removed from the bench.

I take the view that no public official can deny a service to a person where that person is entitled to that service.

"I refuse to issue a driver's license to you because you have red hair"

"I refuse to marry you, because you are of different races."

"I refuse to marry you because you are both of the same sex." (in jurisdictions where same-sex marriage is legal)

"I refuse to issue you an immigrant visa because you are a Bhuddist"

All of these refusals follow the same logic. If you cannot, in good conscience, perform the public office to which you have been appointed, it is your ethical responsibility to resign your office, rather than to deny services to people who the Government has said are entitled to it. The public official is not a law unto himself or herself.

This does not, however, extend to non-government officials who are delegated that authority. A Roman Catholic priest is perfectly free to refuse to marry a person who is previously divorced with a living former spouse, because such a marriage is not canonically acceptable within his Church.