This is mainly directed to those who support gay marriage. I think most people agree a brother and sister should not marry because of the genetic risk posed to the children. But what about two brothers or two sisters? As a follow-up, what about polygamy? For the record, I support gay marriage. I'm just very curious to see how people justify their acceptance or rejection of homosexual incestuous marriage.

It's all about the legal status, really.

The idea of marriage as a covenant between two people in the eyes of God is an ancient and decent tradition. I'm sure socioanthropologists can talk at length about what brought it about or made societies that held that belief successful enough to spread it around in various forms until it became so pervasive in modern times, but the debate about gay marriage, for me, has nothing to do with that.

The government (talking USA here) acknowledges marriage as a special relationship between people. I strongly suspect that the individuals who drafted that legislation had the religious idea of marriage in mind at the time, but the legal notion of marriage and the religious or even personal notion of marriage can (and must, I contend) be kept separate.

The law grants special privileges to a spouse regarding taxation, property ownership, even hospital visitation. Restricting access to those privileges because a modern couple doesn't fit the ancient standard is backward. It's not up to the government to decide who you share your life with, and if they're going to pick and choose like that, it would be more just to simply abolish the notion of legal marriage entirely.

If my wife and I can enter into a legal, contractual relationship (formed and broken at our discretion, regardless of God's opinion of the matter), then our eleigibility for that contract should be predicated on factors that the government is within its authority to recognize. Age, citizenship status, even tax status all fall under the aegis of legal conditions that can be taken into account when determining the validity of a contract. Race, gender, religion and blood ties should be outside of the law's consideration in this and all other matters.

It's really a semantic problem, as far as I'm concerned. "Marriage" is used to describe two different relationships--one legal and one spiritual--and the distinction has seldom been emphasized simply because the two have almost always resembled one another for many generations. Now the borders are being pushed, and the discrepancies are being brought into sharp relief in certain cases.

We can't keep doing this on a case-by-case incremental basis. It'll build up a huge, tangled web of case law that will be opportunistically quoted by people who are trying to effect specific social change or to prevent it, and the actual institution of marriage will just be caught in the crossfire, torn up and abused as a means to an end. Gay rights activists will spin every gay marriage as a symbol that their horse is winning the race, and every time some privilege is denied them, their opponents will declare it to be a righteous blow against the deviants.

======So, in conclusion, I don't think a Catholic priest would be observing his duty if he stood in a cathedral and declared a pair of brothers to be married, but I also don't think the federal government has the authority to deny them joint tax status if they meet the secular requirements and file the correct paperwork.======

To highlight the gulf:

Quote: I think most people agree a brother and sister should not marry because of the genetic risk posed to the children.

Who says you have to have children if you're married? There are plenty of childless married couples, and plenty of people have children out of wedlock. If genetic mutation is the concern, then the siblings shouldn't have children together. Of course, if the objection is, at its core, to the conception of children that will be a burden on society and be unable to lead full and fulfilling lives, then genetic mutation doesn't even enter into the top ten reasons not to have kids. It's just not the sort of decision that Uncle Sam should be making for people.

Iron Chef, I basically agree with your views on the matter. I believe that instead of extending marriage to gays we should really abolish marriage as a governmental concept and replace it with "civil unions". I doubt this would ever happen, so in the mean time I support gay marriage.

My question refers to the governmental concept of marriage, not the religious concept. Just as many people believe that homosexual couples should be able to receive the legal title of "married", should two brothers be able to receive that same title?

The issue of brother/sister marriage could similarly be justified if one were infertile or they did not plan to have kids, but that is more tricky since accidents could happen or one could turn out to be fertile after all. To remove this issue completely, I chose to focus on homosexual incestuous marriage.

I believe in the separation of church and state. I don't think any church should dictate to the state who can and can't be married in the legal sense of marriage. Likewise, I don't think the state should dictate to any church who it ought to provide marriage ceremonies for, in the sacramental sense of marriage.

I don't think genetic risk alone is why most people don't agree with a brother and sister getting married. That taboo was established long before people had an inkling of genetics. But if you want to entertain genetic factors, the disposition against incest might well involve evolutionary forces in that offspring produced via incest are less likely to survive and reproduce. This angle might seem to sidestep your question, but if the assumption behind the question lacks foundation then so does the question. Consider also, modern methods of contraception mean that an incestual relationship between a brother and sister need not carry any genetic risk at all, yet that would not make a marriage between them legit.

At any rate, there is a psychological pathology to incest that provides sufficient reason to ban such marriages, gay or straight. And if two brothers or two sisters got married simply for tax purposes, that would be fraud, the same as with a gay or straight couple who did so for tax purposes or immigration status or similar.

The argument against polygamy is that it inhibits the freedom of the wives. In practice, polygamy tends to involve underage girls for whom the marriage was arranged. I tend to think that in principle polygamy constitutes a kind of chattel slavery. The state has an interest in securing individual rights, even if in some cases the individual wishes to surrender them.

Quote: Original post by Straudos
This is mainly directed to those who support gay marriage. I think most people agree a brother and sister should not marry because of the genetic risk posed to the children. But what about two brothers or two sisters? As a follow-up, what about polygamy?

For the record, I support gay marriage. I'm just very curious to see how people justify their acceptance or rejection of homosexual incestuous marriage.

1) Stating things this way really, really makes it look like you are trolling. But I don't particularly care.

2) Marriage does not have, and has not had for several decades, anything meaningful to do with child-rearing. People adopt. People live common-law. People sign the marriage documents and then don't have kids. People sign the marriage documents and then don't even have sex (after all, it's up to either or both of them to request an annulment; the state cannot and should not try to force them to consummate).

3) On account of that, I find it ridiculous the extent to which the concept of marriage is wrapped up into laws on the books. The law should not care about people holding ceremonies to express their love, nor their interest in sexual exclusivity (although the latter is neither a legal requirement of marriage - in our society anyway - nor a universally accepted cultural one). A former Canadian PM would seem to agree with me, although he was far from pulling out all the stops to change things:

Quote: Original speech by Pierre Trudeau, sourced by Wikiquote
We take the position that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.

Thus, in my mind, any kind of -gamy between parties who are all informed and consenting is A-OK. Procreation, maybe not so much.

But then, should we really criminalize "knowingly procreating in a way that increases the risk of birth defect"? If we did that, why not criminalize risky behaviour during pregnancy? This is a quite slippery slope. Perhaps you would be fine with precautions against Fetal Alcohol Syndrome - but what about, for example, requiring expectant mothers to eat only organic food? Who is the arbitrer of "risk"?

EDIT: Less, you surprise me this time. I would like to see evidence of "psychological pathology" as regards incest - something that demonstates that there is something "wrong" with it, in principle, for a reason other than that the shrink says there is. To call a loveless marriage "fraud" seems odd, too - why not fix the system instead? And as for polygamy in practice, that sort of polygamy can easily be prosecuted on grounds that have nothing to do with polygamy.

The OP seemed to be looking for arguments against sibling marriage in light of allowances for gay marriage, so I provided one that didn't rely on genetic risk. Regarding your request for information. I'm at a loss for where to find information about a psychological pathology that doesn't involve psychiatrists. If you're looking for more than just an unsupported assertion from a shrink, that is, if you're looking for evidence to support the assertion even though it may have been compounded by psychiatrists, then google is your friend. Well, it's my friend. [grin]

sibling+incest+psychological+pathology

Psychological Effects of Incest on Girls, Focusing on Sibling Incest (1994)

Oedipus Wrecked: Was Freud wrong about boys and their mothers?

Selected Resources on Sibling Abuse

Most of the research pertains to teenagers in extremely dysfunctional families where the children involved grow into adults manifesting a wide variety of other pathologies, from depression to violent criminal behavior including rape. That's not to say that the incest caused those outcomes, but it may have contributed to them.

I only came across one case where two siblings were involved in a relationship that didn't appear to be unhealthy, but in that case, the brother had been adopted by another family and didn't meet his sister until he was an adult and she was in her late teens (Couple stand by forbidden love, German High Court Takes a Look at Incest, Sibling Sex Remains Prosecutable in Germany). In its ruling, the court stated legislators had not overreached their jurisdiction with laws that "protect the family order by punishing the damaging effects of incest." The inferior partner in such cases, the court said, must be protected. The court also stated that children spawned through incest had an increased risk of suffering from severe genetic damage. Apparently incest between consenting adults is not a crime in some European countries and other countries are considering decriminalizing it: Romania weighs decriminalizing consensual incest. But that is a far cry from allowing two siblings to marry.

As far as "loveless" marriages go, that is your phrasing not mine. I meant sham marriages pursued for the purpose of defrauding the government in some way, whether to cheat on taxes, obtain a green card or what have you.

Remember, I'm looking at these things with an eye towards the question of what the government should sanction as marriage, that is, marriage in the legal sense. I don't think the government should sanction polygamy anymore than it should sanction pimping or allow a man to maintain a harem. I think these forms of relationships are antithetical to liberty and equality.

I'm opposed to any and all restrictions on "marriage" for two or more consenting adults.

I agree with what Penn says, basically you should be able to enter into a private contract granting marriage privileges to whoever you want (as long as there is no coercion), there is no reason for government to meddle in those things.

I am atheist and skeptic, so couldn't care less about the "spiritual" side of it.

Quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
It's all about the legal status, really.

The idea of marriage as a covenant between two people in the eyes of God is an ancient and decent tradition. I'm sure socioanthropologists can talk at length about what brought it about or made societies that held that belief successful enough to spread it around in various forms until it became so pervasive in modern times, but the debate about gay marriage, for me, has nothing to do with that.

The government (talking USA here) acknowledges marriage as a special relationship between people. I strongly suspect that the individuals who drafted that legislation had the religious idea of marriage in mind at the time, but the legal notion of marriage and the religious or even personal notion of marriage can (and must, I contend) be kept separate.

The law grants special privileges to a spouse regarding taxation, property ownership, even hospital visitation. Restricting access to those privileges because a modern couple doesn't fit the ancient standard is backward. It's not up to the government to decide who you share your life with, and if they're going to pick and choose like that, it would be more just to simply abolish the notion of legal marriage entirely.

If my wife and I can enter into a legal, contractual relationship (formed and broken at our discretion, regardless of God's opinion of the matter), then our eleigibility for that contract should be predicated on factors that the government is within its authority to recognize. Age, citizenship status, even tax status all fall under the aegis of legal conditions that can be taken into account when determining the validity of a contract. Race, gender, religion and blood ties should be outside of the law's consideration in this and all other matters.

It's really a semantic problem, as far as I'm concerned. "Marriage" is used to describe two different relationships--one legal and one spiritual--and the distinction has seldom been emphasized simply because the two have almost always resembled one another for many generations. Now the borders are being pushed, and the discrepancies are being brought into sharp relief in certain cases.

We can't keep doing this on a case-by-case incremental basis. It'll build up a huge, tangled web of case law that will be opportunistically quoted by people who are trying to effect specific social change or to prevent it, and the actual institution of marriage will just be caught in the crossfire, torn up and abused as a means to an end. Gay rights activists will spin every gay marriage as a symbol that their horse is winning the race, and every time some privilege is denied them, their opponents will declare it to be a righteous blow against the deviants.

======So, in conclusion, I don't think a Catholic priest would be observing his duty if he stood in a cathedral and declared a pair of brothers to be married, but I also don't think the federal government has the authority to deny them joint tax status if they meet the secular requirements and file the correct paperwork.======

To highlight the gulf:

Quote: I think most people agree a brother and sister should not marry because of the genetic risk posed to the children.

Who says you have to have children if you're married? There are plenty of childless married couples, and plenty of people have children out of wedlock. If genetic mutation is the concern, then the siblings shouldn't have children together. Of course, if the objection is, at its core, to the conception of children that will be a burden on society and be unable to lead full and fulfilling lives, then genetic mutation doesn't even enter into the top ten reasons not to have kids. It's just not the sort of decision that Uncle Sam should be making for people.

I think you pretty much nailed it here. Marriage should be a religious or spiritual cermemony and should not pertain to the state in any way. This means any permutation of social congress should be allowed. So long as both parties enter into it willingly and can cancel at anytime.

Agree with Iron.

Government should not be involved in "marriage"

Civil unions for anyone that isn't frauding (though I am curious of the implentation of this in practice)

I'm against brother on brother unions because I believe it would foster a spirit of abuse in certain families (though admittedly I don't think the legality of brothers marrying would prevent anyone from acting on this). The same as brother on sister, with the added complexity of birth rate defects going way up.

But my real question is, is this a roadblock for anyone? Do you personally know two brothers or two sisters that want to get married? Step siblings don't count.