What does David Vitter have against interracial marriage?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Maybe something, maybe nothing. But you'd never know it from his response to that Lousiana justice of the peace's recent refusal to issue a marriage licence to an interracial couple.

Instead of demanding that Keith Bardwell resign or have his licence revoked, as Gov. Bobby Jindal and Sen. Mary Landrieu did, Sen. Vitter, he with the prostitution scandal in his own recent past, first avoided the issue when confronted by blogger Mike Stark, then had his spokesman e-mail this to Greg Sargent:

First, Sen. Vitter thinks that all judges should follow the law as written and not make it up as they go along. Second, it would be amazing for anyone to do a story based on this fringe, left-wing political hack's blog -- he's been handcuffed and detained in the past over his guerrilla tactics.

The first part of that statement implies that Vitter is indeed opposed to what Bardwell did, given that what he did was illegal. But why generalize the issue to apply to "all judges." What do "all judges" have to do with it? The issue is what Bardwell did. And why not mention Bardwell by name? Or, at least, why not address the issue directly? And why go on to attack the person who asked the question? Vitter may not like Stark, but the ad hominem attack is obviously just a distraction here. He wants the issue to be Stark, not interracial marriage or racism, and he wants to focus on the story, and on who started it, not on what actually happened, the facts of the story. But Stark didn't make it up. The story was reported by the Associated Press, hardly a bastion of leftism. Stark simply wanted to know what Vitter thought, but Vitter, in response, just danced around a) what Bardwell did, and b) the issue of interracial marriage.

Which begs the question that is the title of this post, as well as this one: What is Vitter hiding?