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Fredericksburg religious leaders and local mixed-religion couples give their opinions on interfaith marriage Date published: 2/12/2009
BY LAUREN ORSINI It wasn't until after Malcolm and Danyella Avant got married that their cultural differences hit home in a big way. "When my husband married me, he hoped I'd embrace Islam eventually," said Danyella, a Fredericksburg resident. "But our first year together, we celebrated Christmas!" Though Danyella--a practicing Christian at the time--did convert to Islam, that first year was spent blending the two cultures. "The most important thing that we had to realize in an interfaith marriage was that Christianity and Islam are both monotheistic faiths," Danyella said. "We had to focus on the similarities." In America's increasingly multi-faith, multi-racial climate, more and more couples are opting to marry individuals not of their religion. And religious leaders in Fredericksburg have witnessed the increase. Each denomination, however, has its own set of rules when marrying interfaith couples. Hilal Shah, a member of the Islamic Center of Fredericksburg's board of directors, said couples must wed in a mosque for their marriage to be recognized in Islam. "A couple can have their marriage taken care of in a courthouse or elsewhere, but then must have a ceremony in the Islamic tradition at the mosque," Shah said. Shah said that Muslim men can marry "people of the book," meaning Christians or Jews, but it forbids Muslim women from marrying outside the faith since heritage is based on the man's bloodline. Rabbi Devorah Lynn of Beth Sholom Temple in Stafford County said she often weds interfaith couples, with a few rules. One of them has to be a member of the synagogue, or have close relations who are members, she said. She also does not allow anyone to co-officiate during the ceremony. She also wants some assurance that "the couple is seriously considering raising their children Jewish." She also doesn't participate in multi-faith ceremonies. "You're trying to fit a round peg into a square hole," she said. "That's not what I got ordained as a rabbi for. I got ordained to do weddings that will produce a Jewish home." Lynn said she doesn't denounce couples who choose to be married before clergy of different faiths.
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