OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) - Two Opelousas women say their marriages - 40 years and counting - and their children's successes are proof that a Tangipahoa justice of the peace shouldn't worry about interracial marriages.

Keith Bardwell created a nationwide stir in October when he refused to marry an interracial couple, saying he believed neither blacks nor whites would accept their biracial children.

Doris White says her reaction was, “All I wanted to do was show them my kids.”

One is dean of a law school, another a law professor, another a doctor of philosophy.

“And they're all nice looking, too,” she said.

She is white. She married Marion White, who is black, more than 40 years ago in Washington, D.C. At the time, Louisiana still outlawed interracial marriage; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that such laws were unconstitutional.

News about Bardwell “did bring back memories of it being against the law,” she said. “You would think that by now, especially with all the interracial couples, they would have put that behind them.”

Etha Simien Amling of Opelousas, a black woman married to a white German, Juergen Amling, had a similar reaction upon hearing about the Bardwell incident.

So she posted her wedding photo from 1969 and a more recent photo on CNN's Web site as a show of solidarity for the young couple Bardwell refused to marry.

A hallway in their home is lined with photographs of her children and grandchildren. Her daughters speak German, as well as English.

“I think it's very special,” she said. “They were looked upon very highly.”

Doris White said being the child of an interracial marriage might be an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

Her children “got to know two cultures.”

Etha Amling said her children were not mistreated because of their racial identity, nor were she and her husband mistreated.

“We have basically no problems. Sure, there's closet haters, but you don't usually see those people anymore,” she said.

Doris White agreed that times have changed.

Prejudice against interracial couples and biracial offspring still exists, but not like 40 years ago.

“Things are changing, but remember, they're changing slowly. That means that a lot of prejudice still remains,” said Dianne Mouton-Allen, a member of Lafayette's diversity commission and Lafayette chapter director of the National Coalition Building Institute.

Incidents like the Bardwell one make it seem like prejudice against interracial couples is greater in Louisiana and in the South, but it's not, she said.

Racism is just more covert elsewhere.

“Someone in another place may refuse for exactly the same reasons, but they won't actually tell you that, so it's more difficult to pinpoint,” Mouton-Allen said.

Her reaction to the Bardwell incident was, “Oh. Someone actually admitted it.”

By CLAIRE TAYLOR - The (Lafayette) Advertiser