First off, I would like to clarify that this post, unlike many in the past, does not primarily concern gay marriage. I merely wish to target a certain type of audience- one which can think unbiasedly, as the topic of this post is… touchy. It has to do with  a topic that, in my opinion, is met with more thoughtless bigotry than any other. It is as well a topic that has more in common with gay marriage than any other civil rights issue, which is why I am interested to hear the supporters of gay marriages’ thoughts on it. The topic? Incest.
Now, before I go further, I feel I must specify. I am not refering to non-consentual incest, the type of incestual behavior in which one person forces the other to do something, such as in cases of sexual abuse and forced marriage. Â I instead wish only to address relationships between to consenting adults, particularly siblings.
I cannot count the times I have heard people thoughtlessly label incest as something that is wrong, unnatural, weird, or “just not right”. Even marriage between siblings seems to be an unspoken cultural taboo, a marker of serious psychological trauma or a mental disorder. But what I don’t understand is why it is labeled as such. What is so wrong about being romantically involved with somebody who happens to be genetically similar?
Many people will cite that children born from certain kinds of incestuous relationships are more likely to be born with birth defects, and to an extent this is true. Children born from incestuous relationships do have a slightly higher chance of having a birth defect.But since when did being romantically involved with someone ensure a child? As long as both parties are educated and practice safe sex (or homosexual), it shouldn’t even be an issue.
And besides, it is hard to see why the possibility of a physical deformity is such a frightening concept to people anyway. Â I personally find it doubtful that any parents, particularly a couple who had to fight law just to have a child, would love a child any less just because it looked or acted different from the imaginary norm. Are we really that afraid of having people that are different?
Another over-used argument against incestuous relationships is the effects it would have on the family. Though it is true that, as of now, such relationships have put huge strains on families, I’m pretty sure such strains wouldn’t exist if society did not view it as something abnormal. Besides, a healthy family should be able to overcome these emotional strains, and it is up to the individuals involved to decide whether or not the rest of the family will even know.
Many would probably be offended at the comparison in paragraph one, about gay marriage and incest. They would say such a claim is unfair, as a homosexual can not help who they are attracted to, while someone in an incestuous relationship could be legally married to anyone else. This, to me, is stupid, as the same could be said about any homosexual. A gay man could marry a woman, completely denying who he is, while involving his wife in what is most likely going to be a very unhappy relationship.
But what reason is there for him to do this? It is the same case with an incestuous couple; they could each go off and marry someone else, but their feelings for each other would not change if they did this. And if they truly loved each other, what reason would they have to do this? My point is this; if two people love on another, and being around one another makes them happier than they would be otherwise, others have no right denying them that relationship, regardless of gender or genetics.
So what is there that should give people any reason to be against consensual incest? From what I can tell, there is only peoples “morals”, their beliefs resulting from their own reluctance to be even a little open minded. These “morals” are nothing more than peoples raw negative reaction to  a subject that they find to be strange and frightening, that their church or parents tell them are wrong. And it is our duty as human beings to overcome our own close-minded attitudes, to discard of these so-called morals, to ensure that people retain their basic human right to be in love, regardless of how different or scary this love is.
At this point I feel the need to overcompensate by stating that I am not attracted in any way, shape or form to ANYONE in my family.
I like it when you talk all incest to me. Mmmm
So here’s the thing; gay marriage is going to allow someone the right to marry someone else, whomever that person is, because they are genetically fixated on that particular gender. The point I am trying to make us that while incestuous relationships very well may be love, those people are not genetically incapable of attraction to someone else.
So denying gay marriage is denying rights based on WHO some is, and that is very wrong.
Denying incestuous couples those same rights is denying rights based on WHICH choices you make. Although this maybe wrong and unfair, a society has a responsibility to restrict the choices that people can make, but it can’t discriminate based on who you are.
And that is the fundamentall difference between the two. It is the misunderstanding about the relationship between these two things that allows some people to continue to deny rights who, according to the laws we have set down to govern our society, they ought not be denied.
I think I should have made myself more clear. Though I realize the difference that Ford Prefect pointed out, I do not fully understand his point. It is merely the difference between the two kinds of love in a romantic relationship.
There is physical love (sexuality) and emotional love. If a gay man where to mary a woman, he could love her emotionally, but not physically. The opposite is true in a case involving someone who emotionally loves a sibling but is marrying someone who they are physically attracted but not emotionally. In each relationship, one of the two is missing, and the relationship is not healthy or beneficial to anyone involved. my point is that someone who is not genetically incapable of attraction to someone else could still be incapable of loving someone else.
And I actually disagree with the assertion that denying gay marriage is denying rights based on who someone is. If two straight women wanted to mary for legal reasons, they couldn’t either. While homosexuals have no control over what gender they’re attracted to, it is still technically their choice to get married to that person. Marriage is not just about who we are attracted to, It’s also about who we are physically and emotionally committed to.
The problem with laws prohibiting same sex marriage is that they do not allow everyone to marry who they are emotionally AND physically attracted to. Incest laws share this limitation, as we don’t really choose who we fall for.
Either way, I fail to see how either consensual incest or homosexual love is doing more harm than good.
Look, its a persons choice to choose to love who they want to, who are we to say that someone can’t love someone? On the gay rights thing, I think that either marriage should be legal for everyone and they can all get the same benefits, or just privatize it and just leave it up to churches to decide if they can get married, and have the state have nothing to do with it, don’t even allow benefits for it.
If the siblings are consensual, then sure, I don’t have a problem with it, but their baby might…
Also at ford, I think that when you say we can restrict “which” person we can marry, isn’t that just as restricting? Look, if you say they can’t marry certain people, whether it be brother, sister, aunt, cousin, friend etc. then we’d have another civil rights case on our hands…
for a continued and far more eloquent explanation of what i said, look up anything that Dan Savage has written on the subject.
@adventure captain pants: there is only really one problem that i see in what you said. A gay man ( or lesbian, vice versa whatever) is not truly capable of being in a mutually fulfilling relationship with a woman, neither emotionally or sexually. Like it or not, men and women are very different from each other. One facet of the gay male is that he is only going to find true emotional fulfillment from another male. Sure, there is the ever-present, pseudo-romantic fag-hag relationship, but that will always end in tears because neither can completely provide for the other.
Ford Prefect: I’m not quite sure that what you’re saying is true, as there have been cases where an openly gay man(*cough Dwight Eubanks cough*) dates or even marries a woman whilst knowing that he is gay, merely because he claims to be emotionally close to her. Being homosexual only means that you are sexually attracted to men. It does not guarantee that you aren’t attracted to a more effeminate personality.
I also have a hard time accepting the assertion that men and women are very different from each other. It’s probably true that the majority of men and women act differently, but I’ve known too many girls who act like guys to think that it is as black and white as you say it is. Furthermore, to say that a gay man cannot find emotional fulfillment from a woman is stereotyping women as all acting a certain way as well as stereotyping all men as acting a certain way. This is especially ridiculous when you consider that a good number of gay men act like a stereotypical woman.
Godfather: I agree with you’re thoughts on it being legal for everyone, but I definitively think benefits need to be kept.
Marriage benefits are a large part of what keep many new families from going into debt, thus helping provide a stable environment for children. Plus, there are too many instances where a spouse will need power of attorney, or will have to make medical decisions when another relative cannot be reached.
In a world of billions of people, there will be millions of exceptions. But otherwise, those stereotypes exist for a reason. I have been in relationships with men, they are very different both emotionally and mentally, regardless of effeminate behaviour (and believe me, I like my boys flamy) than any women I have ever known. My bisexual friends can attest to this as well. So there really is a significant difference between men and women, regardless of orientation. Science backs me up on this one too.
Ford Prefect: You admit that there are many exceptions, which I presume means you admit that there are men and women, however few, who are emotionally more similar to the opposite sex than their own. But then you finish by saying there is a significant difference between men and women, regardless of orientation.
So, I assume your assertion is that the majority, gay or straight, fit the stereotype of their gender. But I’m not talking about the majority; I’m talking about the minority who might be emotionally compatible with someone who they aren’t sexually attracted to. Now unless one or more persons in such a relationship is asexual, this relationship is still unlikely to last because one of the pair cannot sexually satisfy each other, so the relationship is unbalanced.
My original point is this; gay and incest couples are similar in that they could both technically marry, but these relationships would probably not be successful nor healthy.
And before ending my involvement in this thread, I feel I must clarify why I addressed it to the supporters of gay marriage. I addressed it like that not because I wanted to know how the to cases where different, but because I had originally hoped to emphasize how they where similar, a task I’m pretty sure I failed. I wanted to emphasize that homosexuals are probably the only other group of people who know what it is like to be ostracized from their families and communities, stereotyped as perverts, beaten, made to feel shameful, and prevented to be together, all because of who they love.
And like homosexuals, I really don’t think it is their choice. I’m willing to bet most of these couples fight it like heck. But frankly, I have a hard time believing anyone really chooses the conditions in which they fall love, or else Romeo and Juliet would be plotless, and much of hollywood would be out of luck.
And sure, with time and therapy, I’m sure these couples could move on. But really, as long as they don’t have kids, who are they hurting by being in love?