Interfaith couples choose ‘both/and’

(The Christian Science Monitor) Jean Tutt was a freshman at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, when she met Brian Saucier. He had long hair and wore a denim jacket with skulls on it; she had more the button-down cardigan style. He was a member of the College Republicans, while she was a fairly uninterested Democrat. The fact that she was Jewish and he was Roman Catholic barely registered.

Then the two got to know each other better. Jean liked Brian’s sarcastic sense of humor and found him to be incredibly kind. They started dating, and by the time they graduated, they’d decided to marry.

And then religion did matter. Though they hadn’t cared much about their faith differences while dating—an attitude still held by the majority of Americans under 35—they wanted to get a better sense of how their family would work before they tied the knot. Neither wanted to convert, the standard solution a generation ago when people of different faiths wanted to get married. And neither wanted to drop his or her religious affiliation, which is another typical path today for the rapidly growing number of American interfaith couples.