AROUND HERE WE OBEY ONLY THE LAWS WE FEEL LIKE OBEYING

Why does it not surprise me that the locale where this is happening....

A Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple last week says he's no racist but has drawn a sharp rebuke from civil rights organizations in the state....

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, defends his actions by saying that it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long, The Star says.

"I'm not a racist," Bardwell says. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children."...

Bardwell, who has been a JP for 34 years, says the state attorney general told him years ago that he would eventually get into trouble for not performing interracial marriages....

"I told him if I do, I’ll resign," Bardwell says. "I have rights too. I’m not obligated to do that just because I’m a justice of the peace."

... is the same locale where this was happening two years ago?

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana today filed a case against the Tangipahoa Parish School Board because of an official prayer by a teacher at a graduation ceremony. The legal action, on behalf of a parent and his two children who attend Tangipahoa public schools, represents a record sixth court case by the ACLU against the same district for government-endorsed religious activities over the past 13 years.....

Which was a follow-up on this?

Teachers and administrators in Tangipahoa Parish continue to violate a court-imposed school prayer ban, according to the ACLU, which on May 18 asked a federal judge to send them to jail.

For the fourth time in less than two months, the ACLU has formally notified the judge that school officials are flouting the prayer ban, imposed to settle a lawsuit the civil liberties group filed for a parent in 2003.

This time, the group says, an elementary school teacher in Tangipahoa Parish repeatedly held prayers in her fourth grade class, encouraged students to bring their Bibles to school, held Bible study classes in the cafeteria of D.C. Reeves Elementary School, and admonished students who didn’t show up for the class.

In addition, the ACLU cites a prayer it says was recently given at Amite High School, over a loudspeaker, at an awards banquet. The prayer ended with the words “In Jesus’ name we pray,” violating the ban; the principal of the school sat silently by.

The May 18 filing is the latest skirmish in a decade-long battle between the ACLU here and school authorities in the rural parish north of Lake Pontchartrain over the place of religion in the classroom....

Warned that he get in trouble if he refuses to issue licenses for interracial couples, Bardwell says, "I have rights too. I’m not obligated to do that." Never mind the fact that law actually does obligate him to do that, just as the law obligates the school board to keep the schools secular. That's our law. Their law is all that matters to them, so their law is the only law they feel obliged toobey.