As the cock-eyed optimists we all want to be, it’s tempting to try to find good news in the controversy over the Louisiana justice of the peace who refuses to marry mixed-race couples.

“I have piles and piles of black friends,” Keith Bardwell, the J.P. in question, told the AP last week. “They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom.”

Remember that until 1967 it was legal to prohibit mixed race couples from marrying — just as, until 1964, it was technically legal to forbid African-Americans from using public restrooms reserved for whites.

While Bardwell remains adamant that he will not marry mixed race couples — like the parents of Pres. Barack Obama, for example — he is a flaming liberal by comparison when it comes to the bathroom issue. He would theoretically allow Pres. Obama to use his bathroom, in the unlikely event such a need were to come up.

We’ve come a long way, baby — as feminist smokers used to say.

These unfiltered views into the twisted rationale of racist thinking shock the senses. Why wouldn’t Bardwell allow his black “friends” to use the facilities in his home? Is it an issue of cleanliness? If so, it appears that Bardwell, who in photos and the video above, appears unshorn, unshaved and unshowered, sets a higher standard of personal hygiene for people of other races than he does for himself.

As the controversy broke, Bardwell offered insight into his thinking to a reporter for his local paper, the Hammond, La., Star: “Bardwell said from his experience, ‘99 percent of the time’ the interracial couple consists of a black man and white woman. I find that rather confusing.’”

Just a half-century or so ago, folks like Bardwell were spared the confusion. A black man whose behavior toward a white woman could be interpreted as anything less than obsequious would have been lynched before the sun rose the next day. But in 2009, the marriage of a black man to a white woman merely engenders “confusion.” Again, looking for the glass half full, we should take this as more progress.

Like all good right wingers, Bardwell’s bottom line concern is, of course, the children: “I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves,” Bardwell said. “In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer.”

As one wag put it, what’s he afraid of — that a mixed-race kid might grow up to be president?

Bardwell now says he stands by his refusal to marry mixed race couples and will not resign. This prompts the question, why isn’t Keith Bardwell under arrest? As noted, his refusal to marry mixed-race couples has been illegal under federal law since 1964, when the Supreme Court ruled it so in Loving v. Virginia.

It has also come to light that local officials have known about his illegal practices for years. There has clearly been a conspiracy of silence in the parish and the Louisiana state government that has allowed this racist official to repeatedly violate the law.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice needs to review the actions of Bardwell and all the officials who kept quiet about his illegal practices. Giving him a pass sends the signal that United States civil rights laws are empty and meaningless.