Please note that I am quoting you, not in the order of your post, but rather, by the length of my responses to each point. My response to your point about upbringing is last, because it was the longest one. I am just prefacing this to avoid confusion.
Well, quoting you, this is the exception, not the rule. Yes there are interfaith, interracial, etc couple out there, but they remain a really small minority.
That depends on where in the world you live and love. Just because a girl or guy is killed for choosing someone of a different faith for "honor" and to maintain the status quo, doesn't mean that they are a minority. It simply means that the rate at which they kill their own is greater than the rate of success for an interracial or interfaith couple.
He actually dated the girl, and tried to convince her to convert while trying to avoid having her and his parents meeting. This lasted for months until the girl realized it wouldn't change and broke up.
Good for her. There are far, far too many women out there that stay with a controlling man for whatever reason and lack the courage, and common sense to leave him for whatever reason.
And as for your friend, please don't take offense by this, because it is not my intention. It sounds like he was from one of those religious families in which the rights of the "unknown" is superceded by the unconditional love he is supposed to receive from his parents. I am sorry but neither religion nor my family will be dictating to me as to whom I decide to be with. If my parents love me, then they will support my decisions, even if they don't always agree with them, otherwise, they lose me as well.
It seems like your friend was more concerned with controlling the girl he was dating, that he was with loving her, and he didn't have what it took to do the right thing and stand up to his parents. Even if things didn't work out with the girl for whatever reason, then at least he took a stand on principal and would not allow his feelings to be dictated to by anyone. Unfortunately for him, and the person he ends up with, he will never be courageous enough to stand up for himself and his own beliefs. He will always be looking to cater to his parents.
After a certain point in a person's life, you'll come to realize what is most important to you. Although getting approval from your family makes things easier, it is not a requirement, and in all truth, if a person is going to live their lives pandering to their parent's whims, then they might as well forget about being an adult and having their own life and consider a life plan that allows them to continue living with their parents until the day they die, and possibly an end of life plan after that since they won't know how to live without being taken care of and they will never be full-fledged adults for that reason, and no self-respecting person will want to get anywhere near them because of it.
Part of being a good parent is realizing that your kid will do things that you don't approve of or like, but that you will have to support because you love them and want them to be happy, because at the end of the day, it is their life that they have to live and they are the ones that would have to deal with the consequences of their choices, and all you can do is try to support them when they need it because that is what a parent is supposed to do, and that is what a good parent does, regardless of whatever invisible force tells them to.
Don't get me wrong, I love my parents, and I respect them, but they would be amiss if they thought for one second that I would allow them or their feelings to dictate my feelings toward a person or my relationship with them. If they have concerns, then I will respect them enough to give them the courtesy and respect by allowing them an opportunity to voice them, and I'll do my best to try and allay them and try to get to the bottom of the situation if I feel that it is a legitimate concern, (such as cheating or lying about who he is or his past, etc.) because I do know that my family loves me and are only looking out for me because they wouldn't want me to be hurt, but ultimately, the final decision is mine and at the end of the day, they can either get on board, or they can get out of my way.
Its not a question of attraction or love.
It is actually about love, strength and courage. Love takes strength and courage fortifies both, and the three are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other. It is love that can make a person overlook things that they themselves wouldn't find attractive in a person, it takes strength to overlook that instead of running away and it is courage, that strengthens both, even if the odds are against them. You will never know what true love is, if you don't have the strength and courage to be vulnerable to that person. That is why it takes more strength to love than it does to hate.
A person who says that they are attracted to the same women that you see Hugh Hefner with at the Playboy Mansion, and will only date that type, could very easily end up falling for someone who is the complete opposite of that.. and because they had the courage to not run away because that person didn't fit in to that category, they could end up being much happier than they would if they did. If a person's love is true, and is courageous, then their love for that person is strong, and cannot be "overthrown easily by trivial factors."
The only way a person's attraction can be wrong, is if it is to someone in their own family and to a person or being that cannot give it's consent. We are far and away from the times in which incest would be necessary for survival.. and rape is wrong, and that is exactly what it would be to pursue someone that cannot give its consent.
Its about how they were brought up. A guy might feel attracted to a girl of a different faith, but that doesn't mean that he'll date her. Not because he doesn't like the fact that she has different beliefs, but because in his mind it would be wrong.
You do make an excellent point regarding upbringing. I was raised by my mother and great-grandmother, (and she also raised my mother) who was abused by White people in the South for no other reason than her skin color. In the 1940's, she and her family moved to New York where she could escape that and give her family a better chance at survival. I used to take care of her before she died, and I saw the lash marks from the beating she used to get from her aunt, who was White, simply because she had dark skin. My great-grandmother was dark because her father was Black, and her mother, was Irish, and both sides of her family had Cherokee blood.
Because of her skin color, instead of having a regular education, she was only allowed to attend school 2 months out of the year and that was only because the ground was too frozen in the colder parts of Winter to plant anything. White people simply didn't want Black people to be educated, even after the Jim Crow laws had been overturned. My great-grandmother did not raise me to be prejudiced against anyone. She always said that as long as the person I am with, loves me and treats me the way I deserve to be treated, then the person I bring home is good with her.
That is a belief that she held until the day she died. The man I dated before my husband was White, (well actually, he was Italian mixed with Irish, German, Scottish and Cherokee) and although we did have our problems, race wasn't one of them, and even though his family called me every racial epithet in the book, in fact, during our relationship, I even learned a few new ones as well, but he did not allow his family or their hatred to intervene in our relationship. He stood up to them and told them that they didn't have to accept our relationship, because at the end of the day, it didn't matter.
He loved me, and wanted to be with me and that was all there was to it and if they loved him as much as they claimed, then they would be happy for him instead of trying to hurt him, and that if they had a problem with me, then they had a problem with him to. My great-grandmother didn't look or think twice about his skin color, or his views on religion, even though she had been given a lot of crap by White people in the South and was a deeply religious woman. She grew like him a lot, because she saw how much he loved me and how much I cared for him, and the way he treated me, that was more than enough for her for him to ok in her book, she even said that we would make pretty kids someday, which I thought was funny because he always blushed when she said it and I thought it was adorable when he did. My family never had a problem with his skin color or his religious beliefs either.
My husband, who would also be the man I dated after my ex, was also the product of varied ethic origin. His mother is Black, with Egyptian and Native American roots and his father is half Spanish (Spaniard) and Italian.
His grandfather was full-blown Italian and his grandmother was half Spanish and half Puertorican. The irony of this is that his grandfather was racist, and did not accept the fact that his son, (my father-in-law) was dating a Black woman, even though, his own wife was biracial and she was not racist at all. Still though, when my husband was born, his grandfather came around. His grandfather was the only one in his paternal family, that had the problem with his mother's race. His aunts, uncles and grandmother accepted his mother from day one, and they all were friends before my husband was born.
On the subject, My late-grandfather, the one who just died last month, was half Cherokee and half Irish, whose love for my grandmother, a Black and Native American woman of Apache and Blackfoot roots. Throughout their entire relationship, they have taken a lot of bullshit for being together. From their families, their friends, the law, the church, and they never let it affect them or their relationship, they ended up leaving the South and moved to New York, which is where they stayed until my father and his brother graduated from high school and went into the U.S.A.F and Marines, respectively. My grandparents had been pulled over, harassed and arrested many times when driving across state lines, simply because he appeared to be White, and she appeared to be Black, which was illegal in the South.
My grandfather always kept it moving by saying that he wasn't White, and that he was Black, but that he was an albino, which was why his skin was lighter than my grandmother's. He figured that if a person would be so stupid and ignorant as to judge a person by their skin color, that they probably wouldn't be smart enough to know what an albino is.. and he was right. Eventually, both of their families came around when my dad and his brothers and sister were born. It was one of those many trips from the North to the South to visit their families that led them to be pulled over constantly by state troopers, looking to meet their quota.
I too, have been affected by my upbringing, but it was that skin color, ethnicity, class, religious beliefs don't matter when it comes to true love. I come from a family of fighters, who had the strength and courage to stand up for what they believe in even when the odds, their families, friends, the law and their own church are against them. They did not falter and run away from the challenge and take the easier path, they met the challenge, head on and they persevered. As I got older, and saw the fucked up things that have taken place on this planet in the name of religion, and throughout history, I decided that religion didn't matter either. Something that allows allows the rape and murder of women and children, and is being used as a tool for hate, has no say in my life, or any decision that I make for myself.
That being said, if a person looks at a person they are attracted to, but decides not to be with them because of their race, religion, class, etc., then that says that they are weak, and do not have the strength and courage it takes to love someone unconditionally, and not because it is "wrong."