Gay Marriage leads to incest and polygamy

[Redleader34]

Courtin' trouble

Gay marriage victory in Albany stirs valid fears that incest and polygamy could come next

Posted Thursday, June 21st 2007, 4:00 AM

Gay rights activists are understandably euphoric over the state Assembly's vote this week to legalize same-sex marriage - the first time either house in Albany has approved the measure.

The Empire State Pride Agenda and other advocacy groups now face a tough battle to get the Republican-led Senate to go along with the measure - and an even bigger battle to quell the fears of many New Yorkers that allowing gay marriage will shove society down a slippery slope to legalizing now-taboo sexual arrangements like polygamy and incest.

Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn voiced those fears during the prevote debate when he proposed, with heavy sarcasm, that "maybe we should include incest in the bill and sort of deal with the whole package at one time."

The standard response among same-sex advocates is to dismiss such concerns as bigoted and absurd. But that's a mistake: Hikind makes an important point.

There are disturbing signs all over the country that conservatives were right to predict that proponents of odd and radical sexual practices would try to slip through the political and legal doors opened by the gay rights movement.

In Ohio, a former sheriff's deputy named Paul Lowe has been fighting a fierce legal battle to overturn the state's anti-incest law. Lowe, who pleaded no contest to having sex with his adult stepdaughter, spent 120 days in jail and was designated a sexual offender.

The sentence was upheld by Ohio's highest court, but Lowe is planning an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to Time magazine - and he's planning to make an argument based on Lawrence vs. Texas, a key gay-friendly legal precedent that struck down state anti-sodomy laws. In Lawrence, the high court ruled in 2003 that state laws banning gay sex in private were unconstitutional, citing "an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex."

That sounds perfectly fine - but what will happen when this live-and-let-live attitude bumps up against the yuck factor of voluntary incest?

In Wisconsin, Allen Muth and his younger sister Patricia got married and had three children together - and mounted a court fight that went all the way to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against the Muths in 2005.

Overseas, Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski, a brother-and-sister couple in Germany, have four kids together and are fighting that country's anti-incest laws with support from the Green Party in Germany.

Take a step back from sibling incest, and there's a Web site, cousincouples.com, that makes a passionate case for allowing first cousins to marry (which is legal in 20 states).

Over at pro-polygamy.com, a self-described "national movement" in favor of plural marriage, the site says that "freely-consenting, adult, nonabusive, marriage-committed polygamy is the next civil rights battle."

A number of mainstream columnists, academics and the American Civil Liberties Union have voiced support for polygamy, using the same arguments that support gay marriage: that what loving, responsible, consenting adults do is their own business and none of the government's.

I accept the argument, at least in the abstract. And it's obvious that New York's steps toward legalizing gay marriage won't trigger the collapse of civilization.

But advocates of same-sex marriage should recognize that you don't have to be a religious fanatic or a bigot to wonder, with a certain uneasiness, where all of this is heading.

[email protected]

How do I shoot holes into this argument?

[Singular Intellect]

I actually fail to see where either incest or polygamy is 'harmful' while homosexuality isn't. The only logcal arguement would be against incest producing children, but if steps are taken to ensure that doesn't happen...who gets hurt?

Personally, I find incest a rather disgusting concept and polygamy a strange one, but those aren't arguements, just personal taste.

If people want to fuck and marry within the family and/or have multiple wives, who are we to argue otherwise? I can't think of any logical arguement against them either.

[Sriad]

Incest and polygamy CAN both be products of healthy relationships, but they are both far more likely to lead to or come from abuse than homosexuality.

Incest will often be a product of an environment where a child or younger relative is pressured into sex, and their only recourse is to run away from home or to put their guardian in jail and be shipped off to foster care. Polygamy historically arises from a "women are property, therefor as many as possible is best" mindset, rather than a polyamorous "we can all luv each other" more respectful one.

[brianeyci]

You haven't thought this through have you Bubble Boy? Spell check, or better yet learn how to spell. Your posts are annoying.

Incest is wrong not just because you can produce children with genetic defects. Mothers and fathers having sex with children is wrong on many levels I hope I don't have to explain. Family members can be brainwashed, pressured or forced to marry relatives. Having more than one wife creates a greater burden for the state, whose legislation and benefits revolve around one partner for one citizen. And if the end result of incest is children, you can't just argue force them not to have children.

Having sex with younger children is much like a teacher having sex with a pupil. It's morally reprehensible, because children cannot help but see their mentors in a positive light.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

But advocates of same-sex marriage should recognize that you don't have to be a religious fanatic or a bigot to wonder, with a certain uneasiness, where all of this is heading.

[email protected]

Why? If what other consenting adults do in their own free time is that disturbing to you, you deserve to be left behind to stew in your fearful ignorance. I say fuck off to the deadweights of societal advancement.

There's no need to poke holes here because there is *no* argument other than 'Oh noez it's different and that scares me!'

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Incest is its own issue. In cases concerning minors it can be banned because of the demonstrable psychological harm it does to them. But there is no valid argument of consenting adults doing things together even if they're closely related.

Putting things in perspective:

A number of mainstream columnists, academics and the American Civil Liberties Union have voiced support for gay marriage, using the same arguments that support interracial marriage: that what loving, responsible, consenting adults do is their own business and none of the government's.

I accept the argument, at least in the abstract. And it's obvious that New York's steps toward legalizing interracial marriage won't trigger the collapse of civilization.

But advocates of interracial marriage should recognize that you don't have to be a racist fucktard or a bigot to wonder, with a certain uneasiness, where all of this is heading.

Gee, doesn't sound at all like bigoted fearmongering, does it?

[brianeyci]

The problem is "adult" tells you nothing. Something magical does not happen at 14 or 16 or 18 or whatever the consent age is for sex.

Legislation is supposed to be practical as well. If the only people who want polygamy are cultists and backwoods people who brainwash their children to grow up to love them, then fuck polygamy and fuck incest. It's all good and fine to say consenting adults, incest okay, but if the statistics say incestual relationships are usually child abuse, then fuck incest. I'm not worried about incest or polygamy at all. It's a non-issue.

I already brought up the greater financial burden for more than one partner. It also creates a headache for the courts. I can imagine a "primary wife" or some other such crap, but why the hell marry? Why not simply live together and have gangbangs?

Slippery slope anyone? When he says "a number of columnists, ACLU, etc." I am tempted to conclude he's either lying, or the position is being distorted, or at last resort simply say I don't agree with all leftist positions. I don't see what's logically inconsistent with being against incest and against polygamy and being pro gay-marriage.

[Gil Hamilton]

I actually fail to see where either incest or polygamy is 'harmful' while homosexuality isn't. The only logcal arguement would be against incest producing children, but if steps are taken to ensure that doesn't happen...who gets hurt?

Personally, I find incest a rather disgusting concept and polygamy a strange one, but those aren't arguements, just personal taste.

If people want to fuck and marry within the family and/or have multiple wives, who are we to argue otherwise? I can't think of any logical arguement against them either.

It's sensible to give incest illegal because it does in fact, cause inbreeding.

Polygamy is more a tax thing. Alot of polygamists use their extra wives largely as a source of welfare dollars and tax fraud. Polygamy also makes various marriage benefits impractical, say the least.

[Anguirus]

If you are gay, you aren't likely to enjoy sex with any member of the opposite gender. You can't just "deal with it" and sleep with members of the opposite gender without significantly tanking your quality of life.

If you just have a thing for your sister, you can take a cold shower and start looking for another woman.

If you want to fuck a lot of women at once, you're a typical male. That doesn't mean that your quality of life depends on making it happen, nor does it give you the moral authority to run a harem of teenagers like that asshole in Utah.

As Sriad quite rightly noted, incest and polygamy are strongly associated with harm. Homosexuality is not. That said, I don't give a rat's ass if cousins want to have a kid (probability of harm resulting is actually quite low as I understand it) or if some mixture of guys and girls wants to have a "non-traditional family unit." Does it trip my mental alarms and make me feel a bit squicky? Sure. But if no harm is being done, I don't have any more moral right to stop them than to stop any other consenting adults.

And even if I did morally oppose incest and polygamy based on their nature, as opposed to their likely results, it would be so fucking far down on my list of priorities that I would have to try very, very hard to care if someone was trying to legalize it. There are worse fucking problems in the world.

(No pun intended)

[CaptJodan]

Slippery slope anyone? When he says "a number of columnists, ACLU, etc." I am tempted to conclude he's either lying, or the position is being distorted, or at last resort simply say I don't agree with all leftist positions. I don't see what's logically inconsistent with being against incest and against polygamy and being pro gay-marriage.

This was my reaction as well. The article is a massive slippery slope, regardless on how you feel on the other two issues. They are different issues, period and should be treated as such. This article seems to be suggesting that if gay marriage is approved, we're doomed to pass laws that also legalize polygamy and incest.

Do other countries that have legalized gay marriage have this problem? To me, it seems the best way to determine if this is even remotely possible is to see if it's done elsewhere. Even if it is, correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation.

[brianeyci]

International precedent doesn't apply to conservative nutjobs. Remember the ruckus when O'Connor dared mention international precedent in one of her rulings?

This gay marriage will lead to polygamy or incest non-sequitur seems prevalent among fundamentalists, because they divide the world into two camps, social norms and evil, and any give or weakness on one issue belonging to the "evil" camp is giving on all issues.

When a retard brought polygamy in a current affairs show about gay marriage I watched recently, the other pundits laughed their ass off and their response was "Polygamy is a non-issue." And they're right, because I don't see a statistically significant amount of people desiring polygamy to make it an issue. Put it another way, where the fuck are the polygamy pride parades. I wish I had a picture of his face right now -- the retard was beet red like he was going to beat someone, as if the laughter was an attack on his soul.

[Simplicius]

Do other countries that have legalized gay marriage have this problem? To me, it seems the best way to determine if this is even remotely possible is to see if it's done elsewhere. Even if it is, correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation.

As seems to be the case with Don't Ask, Don't Tell, a wealth of positive examples in other countries would have a negligible effect on the impenetrable non-logic of opponents of gay marriage.

Never mind that gays, compared to polygamists and incest-o-philes, are a substantial and visible group within society, who attract legislative attention accordingly. Never mind that expanding the grant of existing rights of monogamous marriage is a completely different kettle of fish than creating rights for more complicated and less common systems of marriage. Never mind any of the sound logical arguments or emotional appeals in favor of legalizing gay marriage - the narrow, blinkered world which these little people inhabit is impenetrable to all reason, yet so fragile that the mere act of marriage causes it all to come crashing down. How sad.

[Stormbringer]

Incest is its own issue. In cases concerning minors it can be banned because of the demonstrable psychological harm it does to them. But there is no valid argument of consenting adults doing things together even if they're closely related.

The problem with discussing incest in a hypothetical situation is that you can argue it based on purely hypothetical circumstances. While two consenting, entirely uncoerced relatives may be doing negligible harm, that's a case which is extremely unlikely to actually occur in reality. As mentioned, this isn't something that just comes about with out reason at the age of maturity. There is reason to be seriously concerned about parents or siblings warping the others development long before they sleep together. The nature of family makes coercion a real danger with out necessarily violating age of consent laws.

At the very least that sort of situation would make for a much greater intrusion and represent a very serious legal problem. The legal complications alone in defining such an acceptable relationship are pretty serious.

As for legal and ethical problems, there's also the major intrusion in terms of preventing offspring. As a practical matter there is presently no governmental or legal oversight about whether a couple chooses to reproduce. In order to have a non-harmful incestuous relationship then one also has to make sure that such people are not conceiving. Which again requires, even necessitates, a much greater legal intrusion into an area of reproductive rights and responsibility.

Quite simply the potential downsides in something other than a perfect case are pretty damned significant. And any consideration of chaning the status quo would have to take such complications into account. You can't divorce the reality of such a decision.

Gee, doesn't sound at all like bigoted fearmongering, does it?

The gay marriage will lead to all sorts of bizarre, harmful, and even dangerous sexual practices or arrangements becoming legal is full of shit. I doubt you'll find any one here that thinks that they are legitimate reasons to oppose gay marriage. They're certainly separate issues and it's a slippery slope fallacy to say that one must follow the other. And their exploitation is nothing more than a political maneuver of bigots and ignoramuses.

However, I would point out that you are committing an equal fallacy of arguement by false analogy. There are no biological risks of harm and only the usual ones of psychological ones in an interracial sexual relationship. There are not any biological or psychological risks for a same-sex sexual relationships either. There are proven risks of biological harm and a much greater risk of psychological harm in a incestuous sexual relationship. So equating them is misleading and inaccurate.

[CaptJodan]

Obviously looking to other countries who have experience with these issues is, at least to me, a way to "shoot holes in the argument" as it were.

I know, I still hold out hope for rationality and sanity. SDN is breaking me of it, though.

This article reinforces the fundie feelings of the devil destroying everything or the end is near or we're all going to burn in hell or whatever suit they put on today, but worse is it's true goal to sway moderates into thinking that these items are related. That's the greater danger. It's not like any of this is news to fundies.

[CaptJodan]

As seems to be the case with Don't Ask, Don't Tell, a wealth of positive examples in other countries would have a negligible effect on the impenetrable non-logic of opponents of gay marriage.

I would hope that such information would make a difference to moderates. As I said, fundies are a lost cause, but if this article even makes one moderate think "hmm, legal gay marriage=legal incest marriage...good Zeus, we're screwed!", I would hope he'd be equally capable of being swayed back to some level of sanity by evidence that other countries don't have this problem.

Maybe I just overestimate how many "moderates" there are (and the definition of said term).

[Stormbringer]

Obviously looking to other countries who have experience with these issues is, at least to me, a way to "shoot holes in the argument" as it were.

Quite though one has to be careful about that because those nations have things that the religious crowd finds equally horrifying. Things like reproductive rights, shame free sexuality, and other such things. Be prepared for them to shriek about how it' only a matter of time or just recount any foolish or dangerous thing that happened in those countries. I know I've heard those before.

I know, I still hold out hope for rationality and sanity. SDN is breaking me of it, though.

The problem ultimately is that ultimately this has nothing to do with logical, precedent, or things like basic rights. A lot of it stems from a gut reaction by these people against anything not according with their narrow world view. It's going to be rare to have some one really think about it and listen to something approaching reason.

The one thing I think you can take comfort in is the fact that even among the religious, the younger people get the more often they are to be tolerant about such things. Even if they disapprove, they're willing to let it be between the gays and god. It's not a whole hell of a lot but it's something to remember.

[K. A. Pital]

Sooo... polygamy is bad how if the partners have equal rights?

[Darth Raptor]

Sooo... polygamy is bad how if the partners have equal rights?

It's not a matter of ethics, but rather economics. State marriage benefits are set up for a two-person union. It's unreasonable to expect the government to subsidize your entire... clan. No one's saying you're not allowed to be in a commited relationship with more than one person at once, but marriage (as a concept of governance) it ain't.

[brianeyci]

It occurs to me that it's an appeal to consequence to say that polygamy will lead to unsustainable benefits for more than one married person.

Therefore, if someone can find me an example of polygamy which does involve incest, I'd be willing to consider the issue. After all, this hack writer went all the way to Germany and around the world to find his incest examples, and he couldn't find a single instance of polygamy that isn't linked to cultish child abuse? Lame. Actually he probably did, but didn't mention it because it'd bring up people's bullshit detectors easier.

I highly doubt the existence of any non-abusive polygamy. I'd be willing to argue that women are hardwired to fight for a man, a single man, and in an equal rights society women as a sex would not tolerate polygamy. Women on this board have stated as much with their personal preference.

And even if you do find a single example of a non-abusive threesome, I don't think it's statistically significant enough to warrant legislation.

[B5B7]

So, which groups have notoriously practised polygamy and incest - that's right - conservative/fundamentalist religious people.

In Ohio, a former sheriff's deputy named Paul Lowe has been fighting a fierce legal battle to overturn the state's anti-incest law. Lowe, who pleaded no contest to having sex with his adult stepdaughter, spent 120 days in jail and was designated a sexual offender.

She's his stepdaughter, so not a blood relative so technically no incest involved (& also legally if he divorced from the mother); also she's an adult, so again it is different from "normal" incest which involves a virtually powerless child versus an authority figure adult. So, it sounds like it was consensual, and if he is guilty of incest then so is she, as an adult.

[K. A. Pital]

And even if you do find a single example of a non-abusive threesome, I don't think it's statistically significant enough to warrant legislation.

How about group families in the nordic countries? I'm not sure about their technical side of things but as far as I heard they have several men and women living in a free-sex relationship?

[Stormbringer]

Sooo... polygamy is bad how if the partners have equal rights?

Such a relationship isn't bad.

The problem is that, historically speaking, polygamy has tended to be associated with treating women unequal, subservient, and often barely as people. It's hard to separate polygamy from it's ugly historical roots.

[Edi]

And even if you do find a single example of a non-abusive threesome, I don't think it's statistically significant enough to warrant legislation.

How about group families in the nordic countries? I'm not sure about their technical side of things but as far as I heard they have several men and women living in a free-sex relationship?

You might want to back that up with some statistics as to how common that really is, Stas, because they are virtually unknown here in Finland and I've not heard anything about them from Sweden, Norway or Denmark either. Iceland might have this as a more common thing, but I've no idea of it.

[Spin Echo]

And even if you do find a single example of a non-abusive threesome, I don't think it's statistically significant enough to warrant legislation.

How about group families in the nordic countries? I'm not sure about their technical side of things but as far as I heard they have several men and women living in a free-sex relationship?

You might want to back that up with some statistics as to how common that really is, Stas, because they are virtually unknown here in Finland and I've not heard anything about them from Sweden, Norway or Denmark either. Iceland might have this as a more common thing, but I've no idea of it.

While I've heard (hearsay only) that it's more common for Scandinavians to have had a threesome than other countries, I've never heard anything about polygamy being common or acceptable. I know the Norwegian law makes the point to stress than marriage or a civil union can only be between two adults and that they do not accept polygamy as valid.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The state where polygamous domestic partnerships are legal is the Netherlands, not the Nordic states.