al number of married couples in those years, respectively. [22, p. 64] These statistics do not take into account the mixing of ancestries within the same «race»; e.g. a marriage involving Indian and Japanese ancestries would not be classified as interracial due to the Census regarding both as the same category. Likewise, since Hispanic is not a race but an ethnicity, Hispanic marriages with non-Hispanics are not registered as interracial if both partners are of the same race (ie a Black Hispanic marrying a non-Hispanic Black partner) [10, p. 287]. Record 14.6% of all new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another. This compares to 8.0% of all current marriages regardless of when they occurred. This includes marriages between a Hispanic and non-Hispanic (Hispanics are an ethnic group, not a race) as well as marriages between spouses of different races - be they white, black, Asian, American Indian or those who identify as being of multiple races or some other race [11, p. 94]. Americans were statistically the least likely to wed interracially, though in absolute terms they were involved in interracial marriages more than any other racial group due to their demographic majority. 2.1% of married White women and 2.3% of married White men had a non-White spouse. 1.0% of all married White men were married to an Asian American woman, and 1.0% of married White women were married to a man classified as «other» [3, p. 6].
.6% of married Black American women and 10.8% of married Black American men had a non-Black spouse. 8.5% of married Black men and 3.9% of married Black women had a White spouse. 0.2% of married Black women were married to Asian American men, representing the least prevalent marital combination [10, p. 448]. Is a notable disparity in the rates of exogamy by Asian American males and females. Of all Asian American / White marriages, only 29% involved an Asian American male and a White female. However Indian American males had higher outmarriage for males than females, although Indian Americans displayed the highest rates of endogamy, with very low levels of outmarriage overall. Of all Asian American / Black marriages only 19% involved an Asian American male and a Black female. 17.5% of married Asian American women and 8.2% of married Asian American men had a non-Asian American spouse.
1.2 Same-sex marriages in the USA
Same-sex marriage, a legally or socially recognizable union between two consenting adults of the same biological sex or social gender, has been under fire for many years. Since 2001, ten countries and other nation-states have begun to legally formalize same-sex marriages, including Argentina, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Portugal, Mexico City, Spain, South Africa, and some regions within the United States. Same-sex marriages have varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, which has resulted in legislative changes of marriage laws in order to meet the constitutional demands of equality established by the Founding Fathers. Other opposing nations recognize same-sex marriages as a civil rights, political, social, moral, or religious taboo.the early 90s gay people started becoming vocal about the possibility of legalizing gay marriages. A lawsuit in Hawaii turned the country s attention to the possibility of in...
