States that allow same sex marriage

[Christa]

How is incest more legal than homosexuality?

[bluestateguy]

1. I don't think that is accurate about New Jersey

I think they just have civil unions.

[noamnety]

2. Offensive post

Marriage between cousins is not incest. You need to educate yourself.

Here's a good start point: http://www.cousincouples.com/?page=facts

There's a right way to fight for gay rights, and a wrong way. Promoting ignorance and bigotry against other groups is the wrong way.

[calico1]

3. From what I understand, NJ will be taking up

the issue and vote on it soon but it is not legal there. And NJ just elected a Conservative Gov who has promised to veto same sex marriage..

[onehandle]

4. Damn! And I have a really cute first cousin here.

If I'd only known...

[NMMNG]

5. First cousins can procreate

which is, allegedly, the only purpose of marriage. :sarcasm:

I'll bite my tongue now before I make crude jokes about keeping things all in the family...

[noamnety]

6. When you are biting your tongue to refrain from making "crude jokes"

remember that there are people who have to bite their tongue to refrain from making "crude jokes" when they find out someone is gay.

Years ago I got to know people on the forum I linked to above. I was on another forum and there was a thread similar to this one, mocking cousin marriages. Just for the hell of it, I was playing devil's advocate without really knowing anything about the subject. I started reading their forum, learning so that I'd have arguments to post in defense of cousin marriage. After a while I got to be online friends with a few people there.

They deal with having to tell their parents. They deal with public shaming. They deal with ugly stereotypes that people think pass as humor. They are still struggling to get marriage equality in all states. They deal with false science based on religious bullshit. They deal with having to live secret lives. They deal with having their personal lives put on trial, and having their rights voted on by the public. Mostly, they are just regular people, and you'd probably like them if you got to know them.

[NMMNG]

8. Frankly I couldn't care less about cousin marriages

From what I've been reading lately there's no scientific reason to prohibit them (the previous concerns of birth defects being found baseless) so the only reason there are bans against them still is the "ick" factor. Nobody's relationship or life should ever be banned because of the "ick" factor.

As to the jokes I was refraining from making, they really had nothing to do with cousin marriage itself. It had more to do with the fact that a number of the states that accept cousin marriage while screaming bloody murder about the "perversion" of same-sex marriage have reputations (whether well-deserved or not) for...shall we say....intra-family relations that run very, very deep.



BTW: Tell me when cousin marriage was ever put to a public vote (e.g. "the will of the people"). And while I'm not discounting the plight of cousins who marry, they do have the benefits of 1. If they marry in a state where their marriage is legal it will be legal across the nation (there is no DOMA for cousin marriage) 2. If they marry and move to another state, or even across the state, nobody has to know they're cousins. So how significant, really, is this harassment they experience?

[Sapphocrat]

9. Oh, no, you are not going to play this game and get away with it.

You are not going to play the "Whose Persecution Is Worse?" game by comparing incestuous (yes, incestuous) relationships to LGBT relationships. Never mind that's what the radical Anti-Gays do with their "slippery slope" right into the adult-child marriage bullshit, and the man-on-dog bestiality bullshit. That's not the point. The point is this:

As long as their marriages are "man-woman" and legal in the state in which they were married, those marriages will be recognized in every other state in the union, as well as by the federal government.

If your friends are dealing with shame, guilt, family ostracization, or what-the-fuck-ever, that's their only real problem -- which is a constructed illusion they can deal with (i.e., get a shrink) or not as they like -- but they are still, and always will be, higher on the legal totem pole than we lowly queers. Nobody is going to take their marriages away because of The Ick Factor -- as long as they are legal, man-woman pairings.

Cousins want to marry each other? Great. Fine. Have at it. The repercussions of "coming out" as wanting to marry your cousin are no greater than those of coming out as LGBT -- but married cousins have their fucking legal rights that cannot be taken away.

It's no paint off my fender, this cousin-marriage business. But they have the legal right to marry in, IIRC, some 25 states, most of those without any conditions (e.g., infertility, genetic counseling) whatsoever.

So fuck this pity party for married cousins. They may have to deal with the same sort of shit we do -- coming out, being disowned, whatever -- but they have the legal right to marry in fully half the United States.

And I'll tell you what else: Man-woman cousins can "pass" as un-related. They don't have to tell anyone they're cousins. We same-sex couples cannot. Is that fair of me? Doesn't that reek of hypocrisy? Yeah, so what? So the fuck what?

[noamnety]

10. It's not a contest, I'm NOT arguing about who is persecuted the most.

Standard policy here - if I see an unwarranted attack or bigoted comment about any oppressed group, I tend not to let it stand unchallenged. Even if they don't have the award for being the most oppressed.

[Not Me]

11. I gotta go with Sapph on this one

Well reasoned response, I couldn't have said it better.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

7. Fallacy... define "incest" n/t

[TheWraith]

13. True. Why should either be illegal?

The US is the only western country to have restrictions on cousins being allowed to marry, and the risk of genetic disorders isn't that much higher than for marriages between "non-related" persons. (Technically, every human being is related no more distantly than 50th cousins.) They're certainly not high enough to justify legal sanction unless you want to get into some kind of bad sci-fi future where the government tests your DNA before you're allowed to have kids.

When people talk about "incest" they picture fathers raping daughters, and sibling marriages. That's not a fair or accurate, and it's not in the spirit of trying to create a country were people can live their own way. In a free country, as long as you're a consenting adult it should be legal for people to marry a man, a woman, a cousin, a man AND a woman, or a pair of gay cousins with webbed toes.

Yeah, I just supported properly regulated polygamy. Deal with it.

[Meldread]

12. One benefit of cousin marriage:

You already know the in-laws. :silly:

I couldn't help myself in light of the debate going on up thread.

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In all seriousness, this is just strengthens the argument that marriage should be stripped away from the government entirely. Marriage is, at it's core, about family. I define a family as individuals who share a co-dependence, sharing their lives together, and most likely sharing incomes and housing together as well. There are many different types of family, but at the end of the day there is only one type of recognized family and that is the nuclear family. You don't have to have sex to be a family.

In my mind, two elderly sisters living together, sharing an income and a home - they're a family. The hippy commune is a family. The brother who lives with his elderly mother and takes care of his disabled brother is likewise a family. What business is it of the government's what you consider to be or not to be a family? Why does a family need approval from others to be a family? They don't.

Instead of marriage, the legal benefits of marriage would be made contractual benefits. You'd have the right to bestow them on any individual(s) that you want.