Who cares about facts? You're missing the whole point, which is that it's "gross". Hence it should not be allowed.
You know what else is even more gross? The average American diet. I guess we should outlaw that and force everyone to start eating healthier at gunpoint
No, but we should put a "hefty" tax on junk food, which would force the fast food industry to offer more healthier choices.
It takes a weird dude to decide to start a thread on institutionalized incest but pretty much every Western sexual mores is going to be re-evaluated in the coming years. Especially once gay marriage passes. There's an obvious logical inconsistency to saying this particular group can define its legal rights but other groups dont have the same right (or legitimacy)... incest, polygamy, etc. Cousin marriage and other forms of incest aren't actually uncommon in many societies. Americans, even those who are self-declared progressive liberals and those who are homosexual, often dont comprehend the range of types of marriage and even types of sexual orientation that exist in the world outside of Western/American mores. Underaged marriage exists in part of the world as well. And contrary to Western beliefs there isn't a demonstrable harm to it in most cases. For example in China before communism it was normal for affluent families to marry off their children at 12, 13 years of age and have them live long, fruitful and productive lives. **** is going to change. Get used to the idea.
I think the obvious difference between incest and samesex/polygamous marriages is that one group poses a very serious threat to the children they may want to produce/raise and the other doesn't. As I always remind people, a child doesn't choose what he/she is born into and it's our responsibility to ensure that we can protect the child in the event that the legal guardians have abused their status as guardians. Frankly I don't care what people do, but I do care if these actions are resulting in medically impaired children. While someone will claim that "it's my kid, I'll do what I want", the reality is that the public will eventually pay for the healthcare costs and that it is not unusual for someone to take away your children (or even your pet for that matter) if you've mistreated them. Remember, one of the chief arguments for homosexual and polygamous marriages is: how does it affect anyone other than those involved? Well, as far as I'm aware, it doesn't.
Mathloom: If your concern is for the children, do you think women over the age of 40 should be banned from having children? As pointed out in the link in post #3, women over 40 are more than twice as likely to have babies with birth defects as are first cousins.
Wth? This caught me by surprise. I always thought incest produces mentally r****ded children all the time. I don't know if I'm so correct on this, but didn't one of the Roman emperors banged his own sister? To me incest is just whacked. There are many women to do out there, why do your family members?
The number quoted was for first cousins, not siblings. Closer relatives are probably much worse. But we still ban cousins from marrying in some parts of the world. I think among royalty, the purpose of incest is to keep the bloodline "pure."
That's a good point, I hadn't considered that. In that case, maybe we actually should make it relative. So the more high risk, the more controls you put in place? The whole point I'm trying to make is that we shouldn't care what consenting adults do, until it starts to harm others, and when we say 'others' we must aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalways remember the children.
