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Honestly, it is. My mother has expressed some astoundingly anti-Semitic sentiments over the years, and once I called her on it. Months later, seemingly out of nowhere, I got a tearful, explosively angry phone call from her. She's my MOTHER! How DARE I attempt to correct her? Who did I think I was? Much as I'd always found her anti-Semitism appalling, I think the reprimand (which was polite--I'd simply told her that I thought her characterizations were ugly and untrue and didn't want to hear them) really stung, and I did feel bad for hurting her, because despite that flaw, she was a good mother, and she loved me. Since then the frequency and intensity of her outbursts has greatly diminished (possibly from coming in contact with more Jewish folks in recent years and subconsciously letting go of those stereotypes), and when they do happen, I contradict her gently and change the subject, because she knows where I stand. If she were a family friend I would have let our acquaintanceship lapse a long time ago. But she's my mother, and I love her, and reprehensible though I know these views are, I have to separate them from her and ignore them. My husband has learned to do the same.
Other posters are absolutely right that if the LW simply cannot stand to hear that kind of language from her prospective in-laws, if there's no redeeming value whatsoever to being around them, then she may need to rethink whether she can be part of that family. But those who criticize her husband for not standing up to his family, for not correcting them, are utterly off base. I absolutely never picked up any of my mother's prejudices. It's likely the LW's fiance has spoken up once or twice, and there have been intensive repercussions, and he's simply realized that jeopardizing an important relationship isn't worth it.
The one exception is if the partner is of the group that's getting slammed. My mother gave me a hard time about marrying an atheist (before I came out as one myself), and I told her in no uncertain terms that if she spoke that way about him ever again in my presence, or if I heard she had been saying bad things about him, she would never see me again. That stopped her cold, and she has been on good terms with my husband ever since. If he had himself been Jewish, I would have been more forceful about saying that the anti-Semitism had to stop absolutely. If the LW is hurt because of what members of the family are saying about rape victims, her husband needs to lay down the law to them in exactly that way. He has to be able to choose her over his family, and they have to be able to choose him over their attitudes.
