Sibling-Marriage Equality: Say Yes to Incest

From Laurie Higgins at the Illinois Family Institute:

A recent article in The Telegraph titled “Incest a ‘Fundamental Right’, a German Committee Says” was precipitated by the infamous case of sibling incest in Germany that resulted in four children. The couple had not been raised together, and after they met, they fell in love and started a family.

The German Ethics Council stated that “‘Criminal law is not the appropriate means to preserve a social taboo….The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination is to be weighed more heavily than the abstract idea of protection of the family.’”

According to the Council, the increased risk of genetic abnormalities is insufficient to prohibit incestuous marriage since “‘other genetically affected couples are not banned from having children.’”

Further, the Council believes that legalizing incest would allow couples who now are forced to live secret lives to live openly and without fear.

As homosexuals and their accomplices continue to dismantle marriage, questions about whether other marital criterion, like the requirement regarding blood kinship, can long survive.

If marriage is solely about “who loves whom,” as the Left claims, how can we the people justify preventing two (or three) brothers who are in love from marrying? Who are we to judge?

Several years ago William Saletan, writer for Slate Magazine and advocate for the legalization of homoerotic pseudo-marriage, made a strained  effort to explain why incestuous couples should not be allowed to marry while homosexual couples should be.

In his article, “Incest is Cancer,” Saletan argues that allowing, for example, adult siblings to marry would have an “incinerating” effect on families. He believes that if it were possible for close blood relatives to marry when they’re consenting adults, the family structure would be poisoned by confusion and mistrust:

Morally, the family-structure argument captures our central intuition about incest: It confuses relationships. Constitutionally, this argument provides a rational basis for laws against incest. But it doesn’t provide a rational basis for laws against homosexuality. In fact, it supports the case for same-sex marriage.

When a young man falls in love with another man, no family is destroyed….

Incest spectacularly flunks this test. By definition, it occurs within an already existing family. So it offers no benefit in terms of family formation. On the contrary, it injects a notoriously incendiary dynamic—sexual tension—into the mix….Now imagine doing that to your family. That’s what incest does. Don’t take my word for it. Read….what Woody Allen’s son says about his dad: “He’s my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression. I cannot see him. I cannot have a relationship with my father …”

Just to be clear, I’m with Ronan Farrow, Woody Allen’s son/brother-in-law, but I must admit to being surprised by such moralistic rhetoric coming from the non-judgmental mouth of a liberal. Perhaps if Farrow weren’t so prudish and provincial, he could be happy for the love his father and his sister have found. After all, how has their marriage affected anyone else’s marriage? It certainly hasn’t affected mine. Perhaps Farrow’s moral outrage is the toxic side effect of an outdated taboo that Farrow clings to and uses to feed his hateful bigotry.

Read more: Illinois Family Institute