January 5, 2000
Churches see increasing
acceptance of interracial marriages
___By Sarah Griffith
___Baptist Center for Ethics
___RIVERTON, N.J. (ABP)--The number of married couples who are of different races or ethnic groups has doubled since 1980, according to a recent cover story in American Demographics magazine.
___While inhibitions remain about marriages between whites and blacks, others--particularly Hispanics and Asians--are rapidly marrying outside their ethnic groups, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 1998 Current Population Survey.
___The trend is being fueled by America's first great wave of immigrants that are largely non-white and a foreign-born population that is growing at a rate nearly four times that of the native-born.
___The demographic phenomenon has the long-term potential of transforming the American family and challenging conventional wisdom of dividing the population into distinct ethnic groups and addressing each specifically, according to the magazine.
___Baptist clergy who minister in multi-cultural settings said the findings confirm trends they see taking place in their own congregations.
___Younger and more educated people may have more opportunity to experience various cultures and appreciate different views due to current technology, said Ellis Orozco, a Hispanic-American pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in McAllen.
___"With computers and e-mail, the world is really shrinking," he said. "I feel like in another 10 or 20 years it won't even be an issue. I think in the 21st century (differences) will be drawn more along economic lines than racial lines. Technology is making the world small."
___Julie Pennington-Russell, an Anglo pastor in Waco, said education may make a difference in how families or congregations accept mixed couples.
___"It's possible the more educated we become, the more open we are to non-traditional ways of thinking," said Pennington-Russell, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Waco.
___Out-marriage rates remain low for African-Americans, about one-third the rate for Asians and Hispanics. The findings show marriages between blacks and whites in the U.S. have not increased. However, out-marriages are higher than average among younger African-Americans.
___"It is because of social acceptance," said Emmanuel McCall, an African-American pastor of Christian Fellowship Baptist Church in Atlanta. "The acceptance of Hispanic and Anglo marriages is far more frequent."
___Data published in American Demographics also found more African-American men out-marrying than African-American women. But McCall said his more recent experiences in the community lead him to believe that data may be changing.
___"There are more black women who are marrying out primarily because of a lack of black men," McCall said. "There are those who are in prison, those who are not professional, those who are shot young due to the drug culture. They want a man, and as long as they find a good man, it doesn't matter what he looks like."
___Despite current societal pressures, McCall predicted inter-ethnic and inter-racial marriages "will become less of an issue."
___"For many people, it is just something they are getting used to," he said. "But as they become more familiar with it and as it happens more, the awkwardness of it will play down."
___Orozco concurred. "The younger generation has a completely different world view," he said. "They look at the world differently than my generation did, and especially than my father's generation did."
___Marrying someone of the same race, ethnicity and even religion were social norms in the United States until recently. Today, there are nearly 3 million mixed marriages--about 5 percent of married couples--compared to 3 percent in 1980.
___The magazine asked William Frey, a senior fellow of demographic studies at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica and a professor at the State University of New York-Albany, to analyze the census data.
___Mixed marriages are occurring most among young, higher-income and well-educated individuals, Frey reported. Two-thirds of Hispanics who have attended or graduated from college marry outside of their ethnic or racial group, he said.
___Hispanics with a substantial income are "five times as likely to out-marry than those who didn't finish high school or college," the article said.
___One-fifth of all married Asian women--and about half that many Asian men--have a spouse of a different race or ethnicity.
___According to Frey, 30 percent of married Asians under age 24 are married to a spouse from a different ethnic or racial group.
___Half of married Asians younger than 35 are married to someone of a different group, and a third of Hispanics under age 35 are involved in an out-marriage, he found.
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