Mixed races occupy a distinctive position in most societies and are often neither absorbed nor accepted. Miscegenation has produced caste-like groups in some societies, and in others no significant distinction is made between the mixed groups and the socially inferior parental groups. If exclusive racial attitudes characterize both parental groups, the hybrid may be an object of exclusion by both.
Groups use the Bible to justify their ideology. Phineas Priests, an amorphous group of Christian Identity adherents, base their entire ideology on Chapter 25 of the Book of Numbers. The passage depicts a scene where Phineas kills an Israelite who was having relations with a Midianite woman and God then granted Phineas and all of his descendants a pledge of everlasting priesthood. Modern day followers of the Phineas Priest ideology believe themselves to be the linear descendants of Phineas and this passage gives them biblical justification to punish those who transgress God's laws. Therefore, the group is ardently opposed to race mixing and strongly believes in racial separation.
49% of the marriages in former Yugoslavia used to cross ethnic lines.