Good grief, marriage is nothing more than a legal protection for the inheritance of property that has been glorified by "the Church" as "the right way to do things". What about tribal systems where the tribal chief would impregnate all the women? And monogamous? I'm sorry, but do you ever [i]read /i] history? Monogamy is a very, very new concept.

The problem with incestual relationships is actually the fact that they CAN have kids. Kids that are going to have far more problems because they don't have a good mix of DNA. (I assume you are talking just about brother/sister relationships, not father/daughter, mother/son, because those have a whole host of other problems, like child molestation.)

bABA, if it is two consenting adults, then go right ahead and do it. Personally I wouldn't want to sleep with my own sister (or brother) but I understand some people...just want to. Just like I wouldn't want to be bound and gagged before sex, some people enjoy that. So be it.

My concern is, as juju said, the fate of children which are often not in the best position due to genetic makeup. Take a look at the Russian (and I believe British...) Royal family for instance, which spread hemophilia around because it is an inherited disease and everyone was laying with their sister...so that's where my objection comes.

CAN is a slippery slope. Issues such as abortion CAN and DO allow people to abuse these laws.

People CAN choose not to have kids causing smaller populations which as angela has already stated forces a higher influx of illegal immigration.

A lot of things CAN happen.

Most importantly, denying legality to incestual marriage DOES NOT automatically cause a physical barrier between a man or a woman to procreate and have a child. Marriage and having a child, as already qualified in this thread are 2 seperate and independant things.

Its funny when Angela brings up the whole marriage and child issue, people mock him. When the incest stuff comes up, people conveniently ignore that marriage is in no way a prerequisite to having children. It can happen before, after or never. Marriage PUTS more people in that comfort zone to have children but again, we're talking traditions and societal upbringing here, which is clearly being challenged in this thread in any case.

I apologise for using the word relationship that may have thrown you off. I meant to say Incestual Marriage.

by the way, my comments are not meant to imply that i agree with angela. i agree with his notion that personal feelings should have no bearing on social issues such as these though i believe he has every right to believe or feel what he does. I understand where he comes from even if i don't personally subscribe to the notion myself.

The thing is, well you are making a lot of philosophical errors here. I'm going to number my thoughts, but that doesn't mean each one is necessarily an error you made.

1) Homosexuality has long been shown that it is not a biological problem or disease as originally thought.

2) Homosexual relationships have reached a point in our society where they are a definite force (they are obviously still and will remain the minority between hetero and homo comparisons but they are a definite force). Up until this point the thought of denying gay marriage wasn't really an issue because until this point there wasn't a huge push for it. There weren't enough couples out there pushing for it in the 50's and 60's etc. that it was a topic of a lot of debate.

3) The thing about saying "oh well why don't we legalize incestual relationships" etc., is a) a red herring and b) the old standby slippery slope fallacy. Basically, that argument is that "Oh well if we legalize gay marriage then we have to allow marriage of mothers to daughters and men to donkeys etc." which is assuming that because we suddenly allow gay marriage that the entire moral fiber of society is going to disappear. What you fail to realize is that society is an evolving concept and that gay "rights" have become an issue of debate of late because our society has evolved to where this is not such an aberration to nature as originally thought.

As far as I know, incestual relationships and/or marriages are not experiencing a surge in public awareness and there is no push for them to be legalized except in passing from the Christian Coalition and their respective members. If it got to the point that it was a major issue, then I'd say we need to examine the issue and as a society come up with an acceptable solution. Until then (and I doubt that it will ever happen in my lifetime), let's stop with the red herrings.

You raise some good points bABA, and some that I didn't exactly consider initially.

I would argue that worldwide, homosexuality has reached a tipping point in our societies, and the only places where it is not prevalent is due to government or religious oppression versus our society not having changed (morphed if you will to avoid using the term evolution though societies definitely do evolve, I was actually just studying that the other day heh).

As far as my opinion on what you said, you've found an error in my thoughts, so I don't know, I can't really say how I feel about that.

To switch gears back to incest though, again I tried to imply above that there needs to be more discussion on what "defines" incest. Are we talking brother-sister or cousin-cousin? It just depends on who you talk to as far as that goes.

The truth is, I have a hard time mounting a defense to incest. I'm all about consenting adults being free to do as they choose sexually so long as someone else's rights are infringed upon, and so with that in mind I can't think of any logical reason why it should be denied other than personally I can't imagine it being appealing.

Then again I can't imagine cochorophilia being pleasant but hey, some people like that.

fair enough. while i disagree with you that worldwide its reached a tipping point and in the places where its not is due to govt and religious oppression (only).

Really? Give me an example.

Quite frankly, my feelings on government involvement in marriage are that siblings should be allowed to "marry." I mean, let's say a brother and a sister decide that they want to live in the same house. Nothing sexual or anything, just they are both single and want to split the bills and it seems like a good idea. They end up living like this for years and years, perhaps until one of them dies at the age of 92. Why shouldn't they be allowed to be on each others insurance policies? Or file taxes jointly?

Of course, I put together my feelings on the government's involvement in marriage while taking a poli sci course taught by a gay man who was vehemently against the whole gay marriage thing because who the hell wants the government to have anything to do with marriage to begin with?

I just can'tbelieve everyone places so much value on the categorization of marriage in the first place. Good riddance. Let as many people get divorces as they want.

Back to Beeble's original point (since I think incest was already beaten to death in that other thread), no, I do not think the topic is 'over.' There are fluctuations over time, but I wouldn't go so far as to say its linear and only one dircetional. Hawaii used to recognize gay marriage for ages, but that was actually recanted in past years. There was a period in time where the right-to-choose was actually a more vocal and open-ended issue than I believe it is now. You have no idea where gay marriage will be 30 years from now: there might be a severe back-lash, or, there will just be laziness in the face of vigilance. I have no doubt that Americans get lazy when they get comfortable, and subsequently social values regress. Hell, just look at what the mid-90's ended up leading to.

Being someone who has always lived with family, I agree with this. But not the marriage part. Pisses me off that a spouse can get health insurance and not have to worry about working while a sibling one lives with can't.

However, my solution to that is to just provide all services to individuals instead of valueing forms of coupledom over singleness. This is not just about procreation. Gay couples (at least here in New York) are also privy to the resources of the spouse. But the real loser is singles. It irritates me as someone who has intentionally chosen not to bother with long-term relationships. And also, someone who is deeply invested in seeing all of her family thrive.

I would suggest the government just not bother with such distinctions as couple or single. Single-payer health care is a biggie for me, because of this very reason. Benefits and tax-cuts can be recognized in terms of 'dependants' regardless of familial relation (i.e. spouse, child, sibling, elderly care, and so forth). One could have a dependant, what does it matter if that dependant is blood-related of associated through religious sanction?

Wait...the benefit of "marriage" or spousal benefits is that you can be on their insurance. So...what do you propose for singles? Being on the insurance of a random stranger? I'm not following your logic here, I'm sorry.

Also, I'm against single payer healthcare solely on the premise that it goes against free market. I have opinions on it its just hard to really put them into words, but essentially in my mind, if we go to single payer, why even bother having health insurance to begin with. And if we don't have insurance, then the government is going to have to set the reimbursement rates for all procedures, and if we do that, what's the benefit of going into medicine to begin with unless you really truly are just in it for the service.

First of all, lets not collapse issues. Market ideals are not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the ways in which individuals or siblings who are dependant on eachother lose out on benefits that a married couple get. Jujubee's solution is to let siblings get married. My solution is to say consider many constructions of dependant as accessible to the resources that couples traditionally received, irrigardless of its a married couple.

So yes, 'singles' as you call it, can arrange for spousal benefits with a 'random stranger.' Now, most will not pick up a bum off the street. But I see no difference in a sibling getting spousal benefits, or if you've been living with a college friend for 30 years already, etc. I had a friend who had no family. Her parents bothdied when she was young, and her sister was already married. She had never found a serious relationship (she was still young though), but used to say how she wished she could buy a house with someone. She would have to do it with a good, long-term friend of course. There was no one else. Technically, that's buying a house like a couple with two salaries would.

And, I don't see why if one of those two people went unemployed for a year or was transferring jobs, that (s)he shouldn't be able to get health-care through the other just as a wife or husband would his/her spouse. They are contributing towards the same shared goods (the house) and have just as long-standing, if not even more close, a relationship than many couples do. Who cares that they aren't having sex. Same thing goes, of course, if siblings live with eachother, and so forth. And, I guess if you want a random stranger off the streets, go for it. How many husbands and wives really know eachother well in this country, anyways? Why is Desperate Housewives such a popular tv show?

See that just complicates and confounds the issue. Technically, if two people want "spousal" benefits they can get married and do that (provided they aren't gay or related). Nobody says you have to get married and actually consummate the marriage anymore. In fact unless marriage is legalized for me in the near future I'll be marrying my best friend.

Well that's the problem. Your solution is to have people buy into the construction of marriage and just not have sex. Mine is to have people buy out of the marriage construction. Why fake a marriage to get benefits. Why not just arrange to legally have a dependant who is privy to resources and call it a day. Why prop up the church or traditional 'family values' in the first place? I don't see why one of my siblings shouldn't be entitled to my health benefits but your husband or wife should. I don't think I should have to get married to them in order for them to get it. That just props up the instiution of marriage, which I am not interestedin doing. There are many couples who don't believe in getting a church or state sanctioned marriage anymore and have been living with eachother for decades. Should they not get benefits just because they didn't kiss the pope's ass?

Your way is more complicated. It forces people to fake their lives and to prop up institutions they may not believe in in order to get benefits. I say the term 'dependant' should be expanded to include additional categories and that health benefits and so forth should be rewarded on the basis of dependancy and not marriage. Alternatively, I've also said I support single-payer approaches because they do away with dependancy relationships altogther and just put everyone on equal footing regardless of if they have a close relationship (of any type) or not.

See I disagree with you here. If you want to name someone you can appoint power of attorney and complete a will, people just don't like to be bothered with that sort of thing a lot.

As far as common-law marriages, yes I agree with you on that, and a lot of companies do have partner benefits now (WaMu, Bank of America just to name two offhand that I can think of). Anyway, beyond that I mean really you think people should just be able to name any sort of dependent (not a child I'm assuming because they are eligible to receive benefits), and I just don't see that as being a viable solution. I'm sorry. I don't see any benefit for someone (why do you need to provide insurance to your best friend -- so many problems there beyond just increasing the group cost for which you are a part), beyond what can be accomplished with a very, very simple living will, power of attorney and/or will.

So...

Nope. My wife and I met when we were 16, dated and lived together, and eventually got married. We both decided we didn't want children.

Sometimes the "high school sweetheart" thing works out.

Aw. That's sweet.

Not for health and retirement benefits, that I'm aware of. I could be wrong.



And why is acommon law marriage privy to these benefits when a brother and sister living together aren't? Why should the siblings have to 'get married' as jujubee suggests? Why not just have the priviledges extended to them as well without this specific performance that propagates a certain lifestyle not everyone may be invested in? Why not have the same priviledges extended to friends that have lived together for 30 years as have been extended to common law partners?



If you can prove it, why not? You would still have to provide proof that this person is a dependant. It would still be restricted to a similar amount of people (a sibling, a good friend, a common law partner). Its not intended for communes where one guy works and 50 people mooch off of it.



We'll have to agree to disagree. If its that easy to do, married couples should do it too. I believe in common application of priviledges in this case. At the heart of this arguement I just don't value marriage over other types of serious relationships, and don't think it should be granted additional priviledges that other relationships aren't. One could take your economic and feasability arguements and apply them equally to a wife as to a good friend. Why have you failed to include in your arguement that wives who don't work 'increase group cost' too? There is, afterall, the 'opt-out generation' of women today. (BTW, I do not include child raising in this category. Raising children is a full-time job. But that's only until the kid is around eight and in school. Still, many women don't return to work after this stage, and spend the next 30 years, if not their whole lives, not working.)

Your arguement makes a certain assumption that marriage has an inherent value that other relationships don't have, and that they should receive automatically what other relationships need to do through a lawyer or, as of yet, can't do at all (retirement and health benefits). I don't share that ideal that marriage has an inherent claim to these things while other relationships don't. That's all.

There is no real logical reason to exclude siblings from having relationships or marrying. The taboo against it is fairly modern in fact. There is some biological concern, but that's a slippery slope as well in regards to mitigating genetic defects and relationships.

But this is not a government issue; it's up to the health insurance companies and employers to define which "couples" get the benefit, and which don't. They're going the most convenient route, which is to define couples the same way the government defines, but that doesn't always have to be the case (and sometimes isn't).

Yes, but governments do define things like who can file taxes jointly, who inherits in the case of someone dying intestate, etc. Since I work for a probate lawyer, let me just advise all of you to write a goddamn will like NOW. (If you have any money at all, of course. Hell, even if you don't. You never know, there could be a wrongful death suit and money could result from your death. You need to define who you want to get that.)