Concept
Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities. Historically in many countries, interracial marriages were often illegal or taboo, often based upon religious principles. For example, before the Civil Rights Movement, the overwhelming majority of white evangelical Christians in the Southern United States saw racial segregation in marriage as something divinely instituted from God. They held that legal recognition of interracial couples would violate biblical teaching and hence their religious liberty. In the past, such marriages were also outlawed in the United States, Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa as miscegenation. It was also considered a taboo in other countries such as Canada, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. In 1960 interracial marriage was forbidden by law in 31 U.S. states. It became legal throughout the United States in 1967, following the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States under Chief Justice Earl Warren in the case Loving v. Virginia, which ruled that race-based restrictions on marriages, such as the anti-miscegenation law in the state of Virginia, violated the Equal Protection Clause (adopted in 1868) of the United States Constitution. Interracial marriage has been internationally protected under the UN's "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" which has granted the right to marriage "without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion", since it was enacted in 1948. Since its enactment, it has been accepted by nearly every nation on the globe. It should be noted however that despite this, interracial marriage was not legalized in all U.S. states until Loving v. Virginia in 1967 which legalized interracial marriage in all fifty states. In addition the UDHR is not legally binding and thus it is not necessarily reflective of global policies on interracial marriage. A 2012 study by Pew Research reported that 11 percent of Americans disapproved of interracial marriage and believed it was bad for society while 43 percent said it was good for society and 11 percent reported indifference.
