Interracial couple denied marriage license

[rchapstick]

Who knew? RY is a judge!

 

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[SpiceMan]

Shocking.

 

[cavanami]

Down in the Parish...not shocking to me but for sure, unexpected...

[Flashermac]

California law clearly stated that gay marriage was prohibited, but a San Francisco judge didn't agree and married them anyway. This Louisiana judge admits what he did was illegal, but he just felt like doing it.

 

So what's the difference? If judges don't have to obey the laws, who does?

 

 

 

 

[Steve]

I can see the justice of the peace's reasoning. The kid could end up a famous actress like Halle Berry or a world famous singer like Mariah Carey or God forbid he becomes President of the United States.

 

If you peel away at his reasoning, you'll find that people such as these wouldn't have nearly as much problem or take such action or be nearly as concerned for the kids if a black guy walked in there with an Asian woman or Latina. He wouldn't be nearly as concerned if it was a jewish woman and moslem man. My guess is the black and white thing is the main thing for people like him, not 'race' as he's hiding behind but which race specifically. His main problem is its a white woman I guess. He'd still be upset if it was a white man with a black woman but not nearly as much. The reverse for black men who have a problem with interracial relationships. They get more upset when its a black woman and white man.

 

Segments of this country still can't get past black and white specifically and that's from both sides of the races. We don't mind seeing just about any other combination.

 

Lastly, actions like him gives fuel to the Al Sharpton's of the world and keeps them in business with a 'See, I told you they are all racists and there is a place for people like me to keep doing what I do'.

 

 

[Flashermac]

I met a black gal in Alabama who was working on her genealogy. We hit it off, since she also been in the Peace Corps (Philippines, I think). Among her photos was one of an attractive woman who was obviously "Native American". She told me it was her grandmother. She said grandpa got hauled into court in 1920s Alabama for marrying a white woman! He was released when he showed she wasn't white, but was a Creek Indian (mixed with some white). Seems mixing races was okay ... but only for certain races.

 

If I remember right, a JP doesn't have to have a law degree in most states. He's only allowed to perform some legal functions, including marrying folks. He's not a full fledged judge.

 

p.s. I've read that Barack Obama Senior's papa back in Kenya was strongly against his son's marrying that white gal in Hawaii. He didn't want his Luo blood "polluted" by white folks.

 

 

 

 

[Steve]

p.s. I've read that Barack Obama Senior's papa back in Kenya was strongly against his son's marrying that white gal in Hawaii. He didn't want his Luo blood "polluted" by white folks.

 

 

 

 

Republican rumor mongering

[TroyinEwa/Perv]

Coming in late but I just don't see how this is ok. The original story that is linked seems to have been updated with outcry from many officials. It is not this nor any official's decision to decide if a marriage license should be issued. If the couple has the proper documents and and legal in every sense to marry, it MUST be issued. I hope this guy gets what is being called for.

[Flashermac]

Pardon for black boxer jailed for interracial dating waits on Obama

 

 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House refused to indicate Monday whether President Obama will issue a posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, the African-American boxing champion convicted in 1913 for dating a white woman.

 

The House of Representatives on July 29 unanimously passed a resolution urging Obama to grant a pardon. The Senate passed a similar measure by a voice vote on June 24.

 

The push for a rare posthumous pardon has been spearheaded for years by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Rep. Peter King, R-New York, two of Congress' top boxing enthusiasts.

 

"It is our hope that you will be eager to agree to right this wrong and erase an act of racism that sent an American citizen to prison," they wrote Friday in a letter to Obama.

 

Johnson, the first African-American to win the heavyweight title, was convicted for violating the Mann Act, which outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral" purposes.

 

He served 10 months in prison on charges "brought forward clearly to keep him away from the boxing ring, where he continued to defeat his white opponents," McCain and King said.

 

Almost a century after Johnson's conviction, his compelling saga has continued to capture the interest of sports writers, civil rights activists and historians. It provides, they agree, a unique window into American politics and culture at a time when Jim Crow-style racism reigned supreme.

 

Johnson was first arrested for breaking the Mann Act in 1912, four years after winning the heavyweight crown. That case fell apart, but investigators soon after charged him with a similar offense involving a woman he had dated years earlier.

 

Justice Department lawyers argued it was a "crime against nature" for him to have a sexual relationship with a white woman.

 

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, later to become the first commissioner of Major League Baseball, set Johnson's bail at $30,000, the equivalent of more than $660,000 today. When a bail bondsman showed up, Landis jailed him, too, according to an account that filmmaker Ken Burns relays in his documentary "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson."

 

An all-white jury convicted Johnson in less than two hours.

 

"Mr. Johnson was perhaps persecuted as an individual, but ... it was his misfortune to be the foremost example of the evil in permitting the intermarriage of whites and blacks," one of the prosecutors later said.

 

Johnson's real crime, in the eyes of many, was committed on July 4, 1910, when he successfully defended his boxing title against former champion Jim Jeffries, who came to be called the "Great White Hope" because many white fans saw him as the best chance to wrest back the boxing title from the African-American champ.

 

Johnson beat Jeffries, who had come out of retirement for the fight, before a stunned, almost entirely white crowd in Reno, Nevada.

 

Race riots followed. More than 20 people were killed and hundreds were injured. Most of the victims were black.

 

When they "couldn't beat him in the ring, the white power establishment decided to beat him in the courts," Burns said in his documentary.

 

Johnson fled to Europe in 1913 while free on appeal. After years of fights overseas, including the eventual loss of his title in Havana, Cuba, in 1915, Johnson came home. He turned himself over to U.S. authorities at the Mexican border in 1920 and served 10 months in prison.

 

He died in a car wreck in 1946.

 

"Back then, if you were black and you were told that you did something wrong, you really had no recourse," Linda Haywood, Johnson's great-niece, recently told CNN.

 

"You just accepted what was done because black people were basically powerless and voiceless. Jack may have been a rich boxer, but he couldn't fight the system."

 

McCain and King introduced resolutions calling for a presidential pardon in 2005 and last year. McCain, who says he made a mistake by once voting against a federal holiday for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., sees the pardon as a way to right an old wrong.

 

"The Jack Johnson case is an ignominious stain on our nation's history," he said on the Senate floor in the spring.

 

"Rectifying this injustice is long overdue. [The resolution recognizes] the unjustness of what transpired, and sheds light on the achievements of an athlete who was forced into the shadows of bigotry and prejudice."

 

 

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