Editor's Note: Michael J. Rosenfeld, of the Department of Sociology at Stanford University has done a significant amount of research on family trends and social change in the United States. His book, "The Age of Independence: Interracial Unions, Same-Sex Unions and the Changing American Family," details the increasing number of interracial marriages in the United States.

Rosenfeld uses U.S. census data and in-depth interviews to examine the histories of families and couples.

See some of his findings here:

The increasing percentage of American couples that are interracial.

The decreasing support in the US for laws against interracial marriage.

Michael J. Rosenfeld
Department of Sociology
Stanford University

Until very recently, individual level census data from the past had never been available for scholarly analysis. What we knew about family life in the past came from diaries, from the official records of a few towns and churches, or from travel writers such as Tocqueville.

Now that we have individual level census records from 1850 through 2000, we are able to look into long term trends in family life in a way that inevitably must cast some of our previous assumptions aside. I use the newly available census data to describe the rise of the independent life stage, and the sharp increase in the number of interracial and same-sex unions in recent years.

My analysis of census data offers a new explanation for why the tumult of the industrial revolution failed to produce an increase in nontraditional unions: most families in the industrial revolution moved to cities and factory towns together, so the basic structure of parental supervision over young adults was maintained.

Learn more about Rosenfeld's research here.

Terence McKay claims a justice of the peace refused to give him and his white girlfriend a marriage license.

CNN

Civil rights advocates in eastern Louisiana are calling for a justice of the peace of Tangipahoa Parish to resign after he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.

"He's an elected public official and one of his duties is to marry people. He doesn't have the right to say he doesn't believe in it," Patricia Morris, president of the NAACP branch of Tangipahoa Parish, located near the Mississippi line, said Thursday.

"If he doesn't do what his position calls for him to do, he should resign from that position."

The demands for Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, to step down came after he wouldn't issue a marriage license to Beth Humphrey, 30, and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond.

"I was just really shocked, because he's an elected official," Humphrey said.

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Candy Crowley and Ed Hornick
CNN

Race and politics are a combustible combo that explodes into headlines when an ex-president lights the fuse, as Jimmy Carter did recently.

"When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds," the Democrat told students at Emory University on Wednesday.

"I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African-American," he added.

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Tom Foreman | Bio
AC360° Correspondent

Sometimes, even in the jaded world of been-there-done-that journalism, when I’m flipping through the headlines with a world-weary glance, I still see something that makes my eyes pop like a cartoon character. And this week it is a Rasmussen poll addressing this thorny issue of race and politics.

Or I suppose I should say it’s thorny if you see it that way.

Let me explain. The Rasmussen folks posed a question to the effect of: Do you think opposition to President Obama’s health care reform plan is based on racism? 88 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of unaffiliated voters said “No way.” But among Democrats that number plummeted to just 39 percent. The poll goes on to say that 22 percent of them take it much farther, saying the opposition to health care reform is primarily racist, and the rest of the Dems at least suspect that could be so.

In simple terms: Many Republicans and independents say health care reform is in trouble because people don’t trust the policy. Many Democrats say it’s because Barack Obama is black.
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A Tea Party rally protester holds a sign with President Obama depicted as a witch doctor.

Ashley Fantz
CNN

Posters portraying President Obama as a witch doctor may be racist, organizers of Tea Party protests say, but they reflect anger about where he is leading the country.

The posters, showing Obama wearing a feather headdress and a bone through his nose, have recently popped up in e-mails, on Web sites and at Tea Party protests.

The image has stoked debate and cast attention on the rallies, which have drawn people Tea Party organizers describe as on the fringe and not representative of the overall movement. Their general viewpoint, leaders say, is that there's been too much federal government intervention, particularly concerning health care and taxes.

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Ella Perlis
AC360° Associate Producer

Tonight we continue our eye-opening series on medical malpractice. If you think tort reform will result in a decline of costs and spending, you may be surprised by Gary Tuchman’s report tonight. He went to a town in Texas, where despite caps on medical malpractice awards, treatment and tests for Medicare patients costs almost $15,000 per year, per patient! That is about double the national average for Medicare spending. Do you think tort reform is a necessary part of the health care overhaul?

Four days ago Annie Le’s body was discovered in the walls of a Yale medical lab, and today Raymond Clark was charged for her death. Police collected over 250 pieces of evidence before arresting him at a Super 8 motel this morning. Clark is being held on $3 million bond. Police describe the crime as an incident of “workplace violence.” Both Le and Clark worked in the lab, but authorities still have not released details on their relationship. We are digging deeper and will have more information tonight on Clark and the investigation.

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David Doss
AC360° Senior Executive Producer

John Legend is on 360° tonight. Yes, that John Legend, the Grammy award-winning singer. He e-mailed Anderson and me this morning about our show last night. He had some strong thoughts about the discussion we had last night after former President Carter made remarks connecting  recent protests and Congressman Joe Wilson – the South Carolina Republican who shouted, “You Lie” at President Obama — and concluded racism is bubbling to the surface of American politics. Our debate was spirited and—no surprise—today the debate over the former President’s remarks has only grown louder.

And that brings me back to John Legend… He worries about the town halls and the tea parties and where we are headed. He’s done a lot of thinking about all of this, so we invited him to join our panel tonight with David Gergen, conservative activist Nick Lott and CNN Political Analyst Roland Martin…and he said yes.