Racial Boundaries and Religious Context: White Americans’ Opposition to Interracial Marriage With Asians

Objectives Previous studies indicate that different aspects of individual religiosity were associated with White Americans’ attitudes toward interracial marriage with Asians. However, there is a paucity of research on how religious geographic contexts may influence those attitudes. This study aims to fill in this research gap and reveal how race and religion may intersect with each other in a multilevel, geographic context. Methods This study merged individual‐level data from the General Social Survey 2010–2022 with contextual‐level variables from the US Census 2010 and the Religious Congregations and Membership Study 2010. Multilevel logistic regression was employed to analyze the combined datasets. Results White Americans were more likely to be against a close relative marrying an Asian when their county religious population was more homogeneously evangelical Protestant. In contrast, a higher county‐level Catholic homogeneity was associated with less hostile attitudes among Whites toward interracial marriage with Asians. These religious contextual effects interacted with individual religious identity. Conclusion The main results suggest the significant role that religion, particularly macro‐level religion, may play in White Americans’ racial attitudes and family processes. The study provides new insights to an interdisciplinary audience in the sociology of religion, racial and ethnic studies, and family studies.