From what I recall, polling indicates that black women have the strongest feelings against inter-racial marriage. I can see how that might be: it may be thought that women care more than men about continuity of the generations, and a minority group has more to lose from inter-group marriage than the majority group does. The majority group changes a little, and it would have changed in some fashion anyhow. The minority group can just fade away, as countless such have and will. Some Latin American nations (Argentina, and Mexico I think) had black populations that vanished as distinct groups but left the whole population with a significant portion of African ancestry.

“So next time you see an inter-racial couple, just know: yes, they were rejecting YOU when they crossed over to another race.”

Maybe I’m taking this the wrong way, but couldn’t it just be because they fell in love with someone regardless of race? A former gf of mine was from a different race and it never really crossed my mind. I just knew that we loved each other. She could have been my same race, but it didn’t matter.

“My husband who does not share my race does satisfy some needs that no one my race could.”

I had to raise my eyebrows at this. Some of the points in your list are obvious (hair, skin characteristics, etc). But interest in video games, potty humor. etc? I could walk out on the street right now and find men from every race who do (or don’t do) these things. It just seems a bit racist, if you’ll forgive me…

John Mansfield–interesting stuff–thanks! I would add that black women sometimes express frustration about the perceived limited supply of marriageable men in their group and therefore feel extra umbrage when one such man chooses from outside the pool; I would guess Mormon women would have a similar reaction should an eligible LDS bachelor bypass the supply of LDS women and instead choose a non-member.

Joe–don’t take the personal aspects of the post too seriously. Obviously any relationship is more complex than the appearance of those involved. My list is very specific to my relationship and reflects my values (obviously not a fan of video games or football) but I do not extend those values to everyone. Also, my list includes some aspects that are more inter-cultural than inter-racial. Just trying to lighten up a loaded topic.

(although it is pretty hard to find an American male born in the 70s who has zero interest in video games!)

Guy–I would agree that culture is a bigger issue than race in a marriage, but many of us (imperfect mortals) pass judgment on couples we know little about and race is a more visual division than culture.

I enjoy being in an interracial marriage and consider it a blessing.

This past weekend we went to my wife’s grandmother’s funeral. 99.9% of the event was done in Chinese – a language that I do not understand. The funeral was also heavily influenced by Buddhist practices/beliefs – a tradition that I know little about. Just the same, I felt like I gained quite a bit from the experience.

It’s been a real blessing, to me, to come into regular contact with Chinese perspectives, views, traditions, etc. through my wife and her family. It’s also interesting to learn from my wife’s perspective on the Church (she is a convert). I think as a non-Caucasian convert to the gospel, she has a unique capability to appreciate what is actually gospel and what is merely cultural.

Hi, as the white half of a white-Korean marriage, I really enjoyed reading this. It’s not clear to me (IANAL) if my marriage would ever have been illegal (seems they were mostly concerned with black-white marriages), but still, Loving Day is always a special day for me. Thanks for this.

You say you were rejecting your race when you married your husband, but then many of your reasons seem to stress control of his culture, making it fit your standards.

The one thing I didn’t quite get, in the post, is the list that was provided of “fabulous advantages to not being married to someone who grew up JUST LIKE ME” …

Many items on the list appear be a matter of personal preference rather than a matter of race or cultural differences. For example, I don’t think a like/dislike of videogames or of sweets or of scatalogical humor has anything to do with race.

Guy,
You talk about a diminishing amount of church counsel regarding interracial marriage: dude, how old are you? Because I’m 32 and have never heard anything from church leadership regarding mixed-race marriage (although I confess that if it happened in the first couple years of my life, I wouldn’t have noticed). In fact, I’ve only heard it once in a quasi-church setting, from a lay seminary teacher my freshman year of high school. And I remember it, both because I was so offended and because her statement seemed so outside of my experience, in and out of church.

On the other hand, as DCcLemon mentioned, my grandparents have views on race that I don’t particularly subscribe to. (Although a friend, whose grandmother is from mainland China, says her grandmother is the most racist person she knows, so I believe that it’s not just my grandparents.) My parents are far less racist, and I am even less racist. But I assume that there’s something about my views on race that will embarass my daughter when she’s in high school, even though I consider myself progressive and liberal.

Just to back up Guy on one point. I did come across a Spencer W. Kimball address where he counsels against interracial marriage.

I should note, Kimball was at pains to emphasize that interracial marriage was NOT prohibited. But they simply “recommended” against it – for largely pragmatic reasons, such as culture clash and societal pressures. Kind of a “why make trouble for yourself?” kind of feel to the article.

As a missionary in Japan, I read the article with mild interest and then chucked it and ignored it. Kind of like when we found old 1950s Department of Energy publicity pamphlets in my grandpas basement that raved about the future possibilities of using nuclear detonations for “damn-building,” “coal mining,” and even “road building.” It’s a fun historical footnote, but not much else.

As far as I was concerned, it was an individual matter. I found the women in Japan quite attractive and felt no need to apologize for that opinion. I was even open to the idea of marrying one (provided I didn’t do it, by pathetically returning to Japan for a sorry session of “wife-hunting” like a few guys I could name).

What is interesting to me is how common inter-racial couples have become here in my Stake in TX. In my ward alone we have 10. White-Black, hispanic-white, asian-white, P islander-white Etc. At one point our bishop was an Asian married to a white woman.

Its so common that when we are out in public and see a inter-racial couple with more then 2 kids we start looking for G lines cause we assume that there is a really good chance they are LDS. The same is true with white couples who have adopted non-white kids. I was at Day camp yesterday and in our little LDS group alone we had 50% inter-racial kids.

The explanation that makes sense to me is that TR holders have their own LDS identity that out weighs racial ID’s. So its not that big of a deal to have 2 LDS YA get married in the temple who are not of the same race since there is a temple marriage involved. If my son came to me and said he was getting married my big question would be where? Temple? Not what is her DNA

There are all kinds of ways of doing things. I met a couple from Iran and saw them several times over a couple of months. Once talking to the husband alone, I made some comment about his wife. He looked across to her with a dreamy expression on his face. “We’re cousins, you know. We’ve known one another since we were little children.”

It is always funny to us that my wife and I notice bi-racial couples and never really give our bi-racial marriage much thought. I guess our personal attitudes to bi-racial couples probably predate our own relationship and haven’t changed much.

There are all sorts of different experiences that do arise from the situation though.

I brought my kids back into the US this past week (my wife wasn’t with us) and the immigration officer, after looking at all our passports, still asked me if my daughters were in fact mine.

Not too paranoid. We had a friend who was carting his tantrum throwing (bi-racial) kid out of a store while the kid was screaming “I want my mom!” Someone called the police on him.