Taijmonkey,

I'll be ****ed.

I was all ready to bring out a bunch of examples of Biblical intermarriages but I guess those were just transgressions?

Ah. . . I know. Since there obviously IS conversion in the Jewish faith, those "intermarriages" involved either conversion or renounciation. But this sort of thing
1.) My Father Roman Catholic and my Mother Lutherian Protestant never got a church wedding as one would have had to convert to the other faith, not a real problem as my country does not accept religious weddings as legal anyway.
...was what I was thinking of when I posted. Just old fasioned cultural insularism.