Boise State's interracial football couple marry amid death threats

[Sportsdude]

[img]vny!://a.abcnews.com/images/US/apr_fiesta_bowl_070727_ms.jpg" class="linked-image" border="0"]

For the biggest day of his life, Fiesta Bowl star Ian Johnson isn't taking any chances.

Since receiving more than two dozen verbal and written personal threats, the Boise State running back, who is African-American, has retained several off-duty police officers and security guards to watch over his wedding tomorrow to a white cheerleader.

Johnson, who scored the winning points in the Fiesta Bowl, made headlines when he proposed to girlfriend Chrissy Popadics on national television.

Soon after the Jan. 1 proposal, he started receiving hateful phone calls and letters mailed to the school's football office from people angry at his interracial relationship.

"There are a lot of ignorant people out there, and to this day, some people still haven't advanced in their beliefs," Boise State football spokesman Todd Miles told ABCNEWS.com. "They were hateful letters, with racist language, most of them from people out of state."

Records of the phone calls and letters were passed on to the Boise Police Department, which is conducting an investigation. A spokesman for the police department wouldn't describe the investigation but did verify that several officers would provide security at the wedding.

Full Story:
[a href="vny!://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3422740&page=1" target="_blank"]vny!://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3422740&page=1[/a]  

[Russ]

Pretty bad.. but theres still lots of ignorant people all over the world where you least expect it.

[TehBorken]

Good article.

It's a pathetic indictment of society that so many people are upset about this. Calling in death threats because the color of the bride and groom's skin is different- how sick and sad is that? I wish bigoted a**holes like this would just mind their own business, or better yet, just DIE.  

A note to all you uptight racists: It's 2007, get over it already.  

[Schadenfreude]

I'm sure she's happy to change her last name from Popadics to Johnson.

[Lil Me]

This is too weird.
 
 Just because I live in a multicultural city, I assume it's the same everywhere.  I guess I'm in for a rude awakening when we drive to Nevada and Utah in 2 weeks... *gulp*
   

[Sportsdude]

people just think or assume I guess that racism just disappeared after the civil rights act. But it didn't. Most southern states up until it was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in the late 60's early 70's, had laws against interracial marriages.  

[Vivek Golikeri]

America is really not one country, but a patchwork of different communities under a common federal system. Pretty much like the Soviet Union before it fell apart. Just as it's still the Stone Age in much of New Guinea, it's still the 1800's in the sociology and mindset
of certain outlying or isolated areas. Not to mention pockets of extremism even in metrpolitan regions.

As they have backward countries in the Third World, we have backward STATES or regions here. And just as I'd never advise a white person to venture into a black ghetto after dark, I'd be taking my life into my hands going into what I call "Blue-Eyed Mau-Mau" territory, or "Darkest America." Like "Darkest Africa," a term often used before the Sixties.