My rabbi cousin's view of my mixed marriage

As long as I remember, I have seen religion as something that creates barriers between people. No doubt religion has had some good consequences, such as promoting charity and encouraging ethical behavior. However, a basic fact of religion is that its adherents believe they have found the right way and everyone not following their religion is at minimum misguided and at worst sinfully wrong. This self-righteous view leads to feelings towards non-adherents ranging from sympathy to hatred. This applies even within the different Judaic groups - Chasidic, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reformed, Reconstructionist, and non-religious ethnic. An example from my personal life centered around my marriage to a non-Jew. My wedding, officiated by a reformed rabbi, happened to occur a day before the wedding of my cousin Ed, who was attending yeshiva in order to become an Orthodox rabbi. In all the excitement, I didn't notice that Ed wasn't at my wedding, and I attended his very traditional Orthodox ceremony a day later. However, over the years, it registered on me that he resented my marriage to a non-Jew and, while acting friendly toward me, ignored my wife and 2 children. I'm sure he saw it as a good thing that my marriage ended in divorce, but must have plotzed when my second marriage, several years later, was to a non-Jew as well. His apparent resentment about this seems to have created an unfortunate wedge within the family. Ed's mother and sisters (his father died a while back) have always been open and friendly to me and my family and, while religious, do not seem to harbor any resentment towards me or my family. However, Ed's position as a religious leader and the bearer of his family's rabbinical tradition casts a negative pall over the relationship between the religious and non-religious branches of the family. I feel certain that these segments of the family would be closer if not divided by religiosity. I am a strong believer in the value of family ties, and am saddened by this barrier to family harmony.