But this judge won’t marry interracial couples.

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.”

That last paragraph is a classic. The “I have lots of X friends” is pretty much a cliche, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard the “I let X use my bathroom” excuse. I’d love to know if he would let a gay person use his bathroom, just so we could calibrate his bigotry a little more precisely.