Does the state have a right to intervene in private consensual relations?

I am guessing they do. However, if they moved to a place where no one knew about their relationship, who will stop them?

 

The state does have a valid concern since marage often results in procreation and reproduction. When you start talking about reproduction from two people who are genetically so similar, you vastly increase the risk for expression of recessive genetic diseases (see the Hapsburg Chin for a relatively benign example).

As such, it legitimately falls under the scope of a public health concern. Of course it is severely creepy on an instinctual level, but that creepiness alone doesn’t strike me as a valid reason to force them apart. But, the public health concern does seem to be sufficent cause, in my opinion.

 

State's have long reserved the right to interfere in private consentual relationships and not in just incest, sodomy laws. This is one area with two problems. One is in regard to cultural norms and the other in regard to biological problems. They make a point that we allow people with genetic diseases to marry and have children and in the article it said the husband has had a vasectomy.

A case like this has interesting implications in regard to some of the arguments around gay marriage and I can see a slippery slope implication with something like this. For instance one of the arguments for gay marriage is why should the state prevent consenting adults from having a relationship anymore than couples who are sterile since having children isn't an issue either way. A brother and sister could make the same argument that they are consenting adults as long as they don't have children.

 

Only if the government is run by the party you support.

 

As is often the case, Ottomaton has already found the words I would have been looking for.

 

I think this falls under the Anti-GROSS DUDE legislation of 10,000 B.C. - it's listed right under the "don't eat poop" clause.

 

The Greek Gods (Zeus and Hera; Cronus and Rhea) were siblings who married and bred with other. But Oedipus was probably written somewhere in the same broad era of worship; and implicitly frowned on mother/son relationships, so I dunno.

 

What if they discovered there was a genetic propensity for incestual relations?

 

Many people say the same thing about gay marriage.

 

good points Sishir.

would be an interesting debate if D&D was up to it.

 

I wasn't intending to be taken literally Sishir Chang.

This marriage is one of those things that just makes no difference to me either way. I feel no need to attack or defend it. That being said, my first instinctive is response "who cares? It's not my business."

 

I don't know of any such propensity but that would be an interesting issue. I'm not aware of any studies regarding how many people engage in incest or of any cultures that practice it. Homosexuality OTOH has been practiced in pretty much every culture and the last time I saw statistics they said anywhere from 1% to 10% of the population are homosexuals.

Incest is still so taboo that there are so few people who admit to practicing it that its likely impossible to do any study on it.

 

You would be OK with an incestuous marriage?

Personally its not something I'm comfortable with and thankfully there isn't a political push for it but I think there are a lot of interesting issues that is raised by it.

 

I am down with incestuous marriage, bigamy, gay marriage, etc. What goes on between two consenting adults aint none of my business.]

Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.

 

Blah, blah, blah, blah. Bullsh*t.

What about couples who are predisposed to have diceased children? Should Big Brother tell them no sex, no marriage, no children?

 

I'm OK with minding my own business in private matters.

 

It's none of my business. Like others have said, it makes me very uncomfortable, and my gut instinct would be to say it should be illegal, but like every governmental effort to tell everyone what is moral, and what is not, it is indeed, as Sishir said, a slippery slope. In my opinion, a law making conception illegal between such a couple would be appropriate, and leave it at that. Society at large will express it's opinion, as it has historically. That alone makes this extremely rare. The main thing would be to insure that no children were produced from such a relationship.

Hey... people, as stupid as they can so often be, will do what they will do, either in public, or hidden from the public eye. Better to have a mechanism to handle the health threat to possible children from such a relationship, and let the idiots do what they will, as long as they aren't harming anyone else, then to force them "underground," where they might create children that shouldn't come into this world.



D&D. Here We Are.

 

Then what about people with down syndrome? this is a fascinating but as Sishir said, very slippery subject by the way. I would love to see people's stance on this.

 

There are probably some pretty serious tax, insurance and estate implications with bigamy. Make them chose a primary wife or something, just to make sure HMOs aren't paying benefits for 3 or 4 extra adult dependents and probate judges don't have aneurysms. Maybe somebody could do a Kinsey-like study on incestuous breeding (research ethics and legality notwithstanding), get the data out there once and for all.