-Artwork by Shawn M.
On this day of love and adoration, I cannot help but think it was almost exactly four months ago, on October 15, 2009, right before Memphis was set to open on Broadway, that a story broke about an interracial couple in Louisana that was denied a marriage license by a justice of the peace.
Here’s part of that story here:
(AP) NEW ORLEANS 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. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”
Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.
If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.
“I try to treat everyone equally,” he said.
Bardwell estimates that he has refused to marry about four couples during his career, all in the past 2 1/2 years.
–When we read about this in our office, we all had trouble wrapping our heads around it. Isn’t this type of thinking supposed to be a product of a time that is long over? Apparently not.
In the show, Huey says “suppose two grown adults can marry who they like, then would you marry me?” When one of my best friends, Anne, came to see the show, she nudged me with her elbow at that part. Without words, I knew she was commenting on how much that phrase resonates for today’s struggle for marriage equality.
I’m not sure where exactly I am going with this post except that the more I enjoy the opportunities that appear in my life, the more aware I become of what obstacles are still in the way of my friends, my family, and my colleagues.
If only, as Huey says, two grown adults could marry who they like.
What a wonderful world that would be.
Happy Valentine’s Day from Memphis (and Samson, the Show Pup).
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