Dear Judge, What About the Civil Rights Act?!

I've been interested in Civil Rights since I was young. One of my favorite books was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. The book tells the story of a black family who were sharecroppers in Mississippi during the early 1920s and 1930s. As a kid, and even as an adult, I am shocked by what the family and their neighbors endured at the hands of their "better" white "neighbors". All of my paternal ancestors are from the south (North Carolina & Louisiana), and at the age of thirteen I was also shocked to hear my favorite great-aunt refer to people of other colors and ethnicities really degradingly. And as a nine or ten year-old Girl Scout I was really interested to learn about female sufferagists on a field trip to the National Women's Hall of Fame in New York. So when I read this headline on the msn.com home page last week I was saddened: "Louisiana Judge Denies Marriage License to Interracial Couple." The judge's arguement was sound; he felt that the couples' children would be treated poorly. Most likely. And I'd bet the couple had already considered that--hopefully very carefully--as they made their decision. But we're 50 years beyond Brown v. Topeka, 40 some-odd years past Martin Luther King, Jr., and 30 plus years after desegregation of public schools, and it's hard for me to believe that someone who represents a branch of our goverment could feel comfortable expressing that type of bias while doing his job. After all, we're all children of the same God, headed to the same place. Why do we continue to make one another's lives so difficult? One of my favorite quotes is by Elder Marvin J. Ashton: The best and most clear indicator that we are progressing spiritually and coming unto Christ is the way we treat other people. If we could look into each other's hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us face, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. When we are truly converted to Jesus Christ our attention turns to the welfare of our fellowmen, and the way we treat others becomes increasingly filled with patience, kindness, and a gentle acceptance and a desire to play a positive roll in their lives." And that's something we can all stive for. Even in the land(s) of my heritage.