Stanley Kurtz, one of my favorite authors on cultural matters and the man who convinced me of the importance of defending marriage, is taking up the issue of Muslim assimiliation in western Europe. Coincidentally, or not, he thinks that marriage, specifically parallel cousin’ marriage, is a big part of the problem.
You don’t really need to read the first article, explaining parallel cousin marriage, to understand the second (I read them in reverse order actually), but I encourage everyone to read the whole second article. Here’s the conclusion Kurtz gets to in the second, though:
The “self-sealing” character of Islam is part and parcel of a broader and more deeply rooted social pattern. And parallel-cousin marriage is more than just an interesting but minor illustration of that broader theme. If there’s a “self-sealing” tendency in Muslim social life, cousin marriage is the velcro. In contemporary Europe, perhaps even more than in the Middle East, cousin marriage is at the core of a complex of factors blocking assimilation and driving the war on terror.
This isn’t a problem in America right now, except indirectly as part of the Global War on Terror, but it could become one if we’re not aware and vigilant. So I find it worth thinking about.