Photo from www.harrycutting.com

Rate of Interracial Marriages Soar – According to a study based on marriages in 2008, 15 percent of new marriages are interracial.  This is six times more than the rate of interracial marriages in 1960.

About 3.8 million people got hitched in 2008.  Nine percent of whites, 16 percent of blacks, 26 percent of Latinos, and 31 percent of Asians married someone of a different race or ethnicity.  Black-white couplings were about 1/9 of these interracial marriages, and the overwhelming number represented white-hispanic couples.  White-Asian couples were 15 percent of these marriages.

The region where the couples got married is important, too, and is probably to be expected.  The rate is actually above 20 percent in the West, and roughly between 10 and 15 percent in the South and Midwest.

Clearly, the racial divisions that once marred America’s past are dwindling.  Sure, there are pockets of regions where racism abounds, but they are shrinking.

This also isn’t to imply that marrying within one’s own ‘race’ is wrong.  Of course it isn’t.  Love is where you find it, right?  The only thing that is wrong is the belief that love can’t be found in a person who’s skin and/or ethnicity is different.

Now, if we can only convince people that the institution of marriage is also a bad idea!   Marriage is largely a religious practice, and that’s why people waste so much time arguing about gay marriage.  Instead of marriage, something akin to a civil union ought to be the only thing recognized by the state, especially in a state who’s purpose is to treat all people equally and fairly before the law.  And therefore, marriage ought to be a subdivision of civil union – not the highest form of it.

But for now, I rest easy knowing that old ideas like racism, and to some extent the fundamentalist version of religion, is on the decline.