Maybe it's because I am a male with no sisters and hence have nobody to look at me across the table with a wary eye come Thanksgiving dinner, but I don't understand why incest between adults is illegal. This whole Santorum mess has brought up the issue and I think that's good, kind of, in the way that it is good for a society to articulate clearly why it has the laws it has.
I'm not necessarily pro-incest. I don't think it should be encouraged by the state. I just don't understand why it is outlawed by the state. And I have yet to hear an intelligent argument against it. At Slate, William Saletan asks, if gay sex is private, why isn't incest?
Let's leave adultery and polygamy out of it for the moment. Let's set aside morality and stick to law. And let's grant that being attracted to a gender is more fundamental than being attracted to a family member. Santorum sees no reason why, if gay sex is too private to be banned, the same can't be said of incest. Can you give him a reason?
The easy answer--that incest causes birth defects--won't cut it. Birth defects could be prevented by extending to sibling marriage the rule that five states already apply to cousin marriage: You can do it if you furnish proof of infertility or are presumptively too old to procreate. If you're in one of those categories, why should the state prohibit you from marrying your sibling?Imagine there is a brother and a sister. They are adults. Neither one is capable of having children. They want to jump each other's bones.
Why shouldn't they be allowed to
A) Get married, and/or
B) Have all the sex they want?
I'm not claiming that I am not reflexively creeped out by the thought of bro and sis getting it on (or bro and bro, or sis and sis). But I'm creeped out by a lot of legal behaviors. Being creeped out isn't a solid reason for a law, is it? If that's the case, we'll have to allow that possibly a majority of people are creeped out by the thought of gay buttfucking, so that should be illegal, too.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Phillip Winn
Since you're now asking exactly what Santorum suggested, are you letting him off the hook? Nah, I thought not. Neither am I.
As far as incest goes, I also don't understand why it is illegal. It's generally disgusting, but so are spandex shorts on anyone with a body fat percentage greater than about 13% for males or 20% for females.
But why ignore adultery and polygamy? Why are they illegal anywhere? Adultery can said to have a victim - the wronged spouse - but couldn't that be handled through the civil courts? Why is it a criminal act in some states?
What about polygamy? Does the fact that all current examples of this are generally perpetrated by creepy people taking advantage of creepy young girls or foreign women have anything to do with it? Because that might change if it were legal.
Personally, I'd still go with Samuel Clemens answer when he was asked by a Mormon friend to find anything in the Bible against polygamy: "No man can server two masters."
As a Christian, I can think of passages condoning polygamy and passages that aren't so hot on the idea. But even those are generally directed that those in positions of responsibilty (leadership), not the general Christian population. Adultery and incest are more expressly forbidden, but even incest has come into and out of favor over time throughout the Bible, depending on the extenuating circumstances. And if polygamy is allowed, it's pretty tough to commit adultery, isn't it?
Chalk me up as someone who is against incest, adultery and polygamy (I have to say that, my wife might read this), but wonders why the US criminal courts have any jurisdiction over such matters.
2 - Brian Flemming
"Since you're now asking exactly what Santorum suggested, are you letting him off the hook?"
I'd let him off the hook for asking the incest question (as well as polygamy and adultery). I'm no fan of jumping all over people (whether from the left or right) for asking provocative questions.
The bestiality and child-molestation comparisons were appalling, though. I see no justifications for those. Clearly, they aren't "privacy" issues. They are consent issues.
Anyway, the most frightening thing he said was not about sex, it was about privacy:
And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.
(I know you agree that this is a chilling view.)
But if Santorum had said: "You know, if we're gonna allow this butt sex to go on, we might as well allow incest while we're at it. Let's get the law out of this area. Meanwhile, I intend, as a private citizen, to speak out against these deplorable acts and encourage other Christians to do the same." If he'd said that, I would have said, "Now there is one surprisingly principled Republican politician."
Anyway, it's nice to know we agree about one or two things, even if we disagree about the danger that people like Santorum pose to our society.
3 - Phillip Winn
True that, Brian. It's nice to know that you aren't completely wrong about everything!
And yes, I'm teasing. It's been a long week, and while I'm finally making progress on a design for Blogcritics that might work within MSIE5 while not looking like roadkill in decent browsers, I'm still not there yet, so I'm trying to be careful not to take out my frustrations on others.
4 - Brian Flemming
ha ha ha ha ha
Utah Sect Leader Criticizes Santorum
5 - Phillip Winn
Help me out here, Brian. Where is Santorum sourced as saying about about beastiality or child-molestation? All of the articles I've read recently, including the hilarious one from Utah, stop short of that. By stopping short, they leave the only part of Santorum's comments that I find truly objectionable the privacy issue. As he has pointed out, in his own defense, even that is a common question. Too common, in my book.
So I still think he's a moron, and I hate the thought of him in the Senate, but there are plenty of morons in D.C. in both parties. Kick them all out!
6 - Brian Flemming
Phillip,
Help me out here, Brian. Where is Santorum sourced as saying about about beastiality or child-molestation?
In the full text of his interview with the AP. I have linked to it three times--twice in comments on Al's post, and once in the article above.
And now for a fourth time.
I assume when he says "man on child" and "man on dog" he is referring to child abuse and bestiality.
7 - Phillip Winn
Gotcha, I thought I'd seen reference to it, I just couldn't remember where. Still, you're reaching here. After several times more clearly comparing "sodomy" with the aforementioned mild(ish) though provocative acts, he later, in a slightly different context, says:
Breaking down the pronouns, it seems clear that he was parenthetically inserting a defense (of sorts) of homosexuality as he probably realized he had focused far more on homosexuality than he intended to or normally would. So I don't see how "not to pick on X, at least it's not Y or Z" gets turned into "X is just like Y or Z" is unclear. Maybe I'm just not wearing my "must hate all Republicans" hat today.
The only objectionable part I really find in the whole interview, given the benefit of the doubt and without hearing the actual audio, is "The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that." And that's enough. And now reading in detail I also note that he has a very specific legal basis for making even that statement, so when the interviewer gave him a chance to clarify that statement, he rephrased it as:
And there, again, I can see his point. I wouldn't want to live in his state, but as an anti-federalist, I agree that many things should be left as local state issues. As a Constitutionalist, I don't see where any federal branch has ever been granted the right to meddle in people's private lives to this extent, which is what the law under discussion essentially does (in reverse).
So here we were, agreeing on something for once, and on a closer reading, I have to backpedal and say that within the context of making a legal argument, I believe Santorum has a strong factual basis for his legal position. His personal animosity is a little ridiculous, but that's another story. I'd be curious to see whether this logical legal thinking extends to issues where it might result in a decision Santorum wouldn't like. Is he principled enough to be consistently anti-federal? Frankly, I doubt it. Politicans all suck.
8 - Murphy
As a little sister with three older brothers, I have to bring up one issue of incest not necessarily related to law.
It's a power thing. Incest is rarely fully consensual. The relationship between the parties would make that almost impossible.
That being said, I do think it is in the jurisdiciton of local state government,not federal.
Okay, I have to go throw up now.
ewww...
9 - Brian Flemming
Phillip,
You are clearly wearing your "I must love all Republicans hat."
The pronoun "it's" obviously refers to "marriage."
I don't think there can be any reasonable doubt that the idea Santorum is trying to communicate, explicitly, not implicitly, is this:
Marriage is not these three things:
man on man
man on dog
man on child
Because marriage is "one thing": Man on woman.
He's not saying homosexuality is "one thing." He's saying marriage is one thing. And he's saying that he's not "picking on" homosexuality only, because he excludes a lot of other things from marriage, too. Such as bestiality and child molestation.
Do you really think he meant "homosexuality is one thing"? If so, what on Earth could he mean by that? It doesn't make any sense.
I don't think this is a matter of an interpretation that goes either way. It's clearly the only intepretation of what he said that makes sense. I think you really have to blur your eyes to think that "it's" can refer to anything but "marriage" in that paragraph. Or I guess you can put on your "I love all Republicans" glasses.
As far as the legal analysis goes, would you agree with this statement:
"It is okay for a government to create and enforce a law regulating private behavior, as long as it is a state government, not a federal government."
murphy,
Yeah, it is gross, I imagine even more so for someone with opposite-sex siblings.
Are you saying that the power relationship between, say, a 40-year-old brother and his 36-year-old sister is so out of balance that any sexual act between them would not be consensual? I'm not challenging that idea, I just wonder if that's what you're saying.
10 - Phillip Winn
On Santorum: See, this is where an audio source would be nice. It took three tries with accents on different syllables before I finally read it the way you're suggesting. Having done so finally, yep, I can definitely see how that could be what he meant. Had I the time, I'd post audio of me reading those sentences both ways. Anyway, as I've said, it's an ignorant view, but the legal basis for his overall statements seems worthy of consideration. Er, and obviously it seems so to you as well, hence this post. So we're back to agreeing on this one, mostly.
Your revised question is interesting, because it has been a matter of some debate within my circles of family and friends for some time. My answer is that I think that there should have to be some commonly held compelling interest to the local jurisdiction. Sadly, this is vague enough to lead eventually to a local police state, but I'm not sure I can make it any more specific. In the end, all societies are derived from the consent of the governed (though obviously many times that "consent" can be based on fear or misinformation, a fact to which murphy alludes), and if enough people in an area decide it is against the law for someone to own a yellow car, that's what happens.
Of course, owning a car seems like a private behavior, but then one can argue that buying or selling such a car would be an act of commerce, which is different. Some better examples might be community compacts which require a homeowner to keep his yeard so and his house so because the community is concerned about property values. Or that prohibits more than X number of people per bedroom, ostensibly for the same reason. Now I hope that anybody can see that this seems an unreasonable restriction, since it presumes that all family groups of more than X people per room will necessarily act in such a way to bring down property values, which isn't necessarily so. But it's the "law" in many areas.
So it's a gray area. It all hinges on what constitutes a compelling interest, and many good and honest people will naturally disagree on that. Homeschooling - does society have a compelling interest? Some states say yes, some say no, and most are somewhere in between (which technically means "yes"). What about drug use? Some states or even cities would like to decriminalize the use of certain narcotics (an act of which I'm generally in favor, by the way), and I would be much more comfortable with that decision being made locally than the way it is handled now. (Speaking of reasons to be greatly peeved at Ashcroft, though in this case he's following well-established guidelines, just more zealously than some)
There are plenty of other examples, but I think my answer is probably clear enough. Let me know if not.
On incest: I saw an episode of ER once where these teenage siblings had committed incest during their time of trauma and grief after their mother's death (I think that was it), and their father found out because the pretty nurse talked about it when she shouldn't have. Granted, it's television, but there's one example in which power didn't seem to be a factor. Generally, though, I agree with Murphy that most incidents of anything sexual have primarily to do with power. Certainly sexual harrassment in the workplace is a reflection of power and control more than anything else.
Frankly, I've got a teenage sister, and I can't even imagine her as a nearly-adult person, with all that implies, let alone as an object of desire. Nothing personal, sis, I'm sure you're desirable to somebody, it's just hard for me to wrap my head around, so I'll stop trying.
So yeah, Murphy's probably right, but there are exceptions to everything, which is why one-size-fits-all laws should usually be better reasoned out than they are.
Now, Brian, these interesting comments keep taking me away from stuff I've got to get done, on Blogcritics.org's backend and otherwise. So stop it! 8^)
11 - Phillip Winn
For a relatively well-reasoned argument on why even Christians should not (and mostly do not) support making every Biblical restriction into law, see Eugene Volokh.
I know, it's only circumstancially applicable to this post, but I couldn't remember where else we had this conversation about mixing Christianity and politics, so this'll have to do. 8^)
12 - Brian Flemming
Phillip,
I suppose it is a gray area if one thinks that zoning laws and buttfucking laws are somehow in the same category.
The color of a house can be regulated without violating a privacy right because everyone in the neighborhood sees that house's exterior. The house's exterior is not the least bit private--it directly affects others, to the extent that they see it.
For this reason, I would fully support a law against public anal sex. Your property or not--you can't have sex on your front lawn. Go do it in private. But if the local community wants to follow you INSIDE your house and regulate your sexual behavior there, I would support a judge putting a stop to that.
I don't know what other protection there would be. And the right of homosexuals to bone away as much as they want however they want is important enough to protect, I think. Just looking at a gay person who is in jail for expressing his sexual desire and saying, "Hmm..too bad, I don't agree with that, but the local community DID make the law" isn't good enough.
Whatever value there might be in achieving some ideal state of separation between local communities and the federal judiciary is negated by the fact that some gay dude is sitting in jail only because he wanted to bone another guy up the butt in private.
Re: Ten Commandments. Volokh's argument is good, and I've always known that many, many Christians prefer a secular government to any hint of theocracy. I personally know lots of these Christians.
However, if you could go and convince the millions of Christians who most certainly wouldn't agree in this strict separation, I'd really appreciate it. They're the ones I'm worried about. Not all Christians. Those Christians--the dangerous ones.
13 - Nurse Ratched
For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that the incest laws are a holdover from people realizing that many of the health problems they had were a result of inbreeding -- such as the hemophiliacs that ran rampant through the courts of Western Europe -- and wanting to prevent them in the future. Then they stay on the books because no one wants to come out as pro-incest and no one respectable is lobbying hard to get the laws changed. Then they're only used in reported abuse cases and to prevent intermarriage.
14 - Phillip Winn
Brian - In #9, you stated that I must be wearing an "I love Republicans" hat to be able to hear anything other than your chosen interpretation of Santorum's comment regarding truly perverse acts.
I note that no less a Republican than Dan Savage - in an article entitled "G.O.P. Hypcorisy," no less - makes the same "mistake."
Oops!
15 - Brian Flemming
Yeah, he made the same mistake. It isn't a hard mistake to make. I did at first. But once you actually think about that parapgraph, I don't think it's easy to retain that conclusion.
Explain the meaning of
"It is one thing."
I submit that you can't do it without gymnastics.
Whereas if "it" means "marriage," the entire paragraph makes sense, and has the bonus of being consistent with Santorum's views on marriage, and consistent with the Christian Right's tendency in general to frame every attack like this as a "defense of marriage."
In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing.
The topic sentence is about marriage. The concluding sentence is about marriage. The paragraph is about marriage.
"It" means "marriage." And if "it" means "marriage," that means Santorum was lumping sodomy in with bestiality and
16 - Louie
In america we are not free,But only as free as they allow us to be.
Ban the laws!
17 - BRICKLAYER
Phillip,
I disagree with you vehemently! I had a body fat percentage of 11, and I STILL looked disgusting in spandex shorts!
18 - Eric Olsen
Incest is rightfully illegal. Society has the right to draw lines and say "this behavior is never okay, is never appropriate or acceptable," and the only way to officially do this is through law. Incest is unhealthy physically and even more important, emotionally: immediate family members should have only one relationship with each family member, that of "family member," and to confuse that with sex and all the baggage attendant to such a relationship is insanity.
And this has nothing to do with equal rights or hereditary predispositions as we discuss so frequently here vis-a-vis gay rights, etc - an immediate family member is NEVER the "right one" for you. Period. No exceptions. Ever. Shut up.
19 - BRICKLAYER
But what does that have to do with how hot I don't look in biker shorts?
20 - Phillip Winn
Bricklayer, we don't disagree at all. I concede that you look dreadful in biker shorts, and would at any body fat percentage. Moreover, I never said otherwise.
What I said was "It's generally disgusting, but so are spandex shorts on anyone with a body fat percentage greater than about 13% for males or 20% for females." I never even addressed the subject of people with body fat percentages under those levels, and it's clear that many of them are also disgusting, including you.
Nothing personal, of course! ;)
21 - BRICKLAYER
(Assuming the voice of Emily Latella) Oh, um, nevermind.
I think I'll dissapear now.
22 - shayna
i just want to know one thing... does it count as incest for a girl to fuck her step brother?
23 - Bob A. Booey
It depends, Shayna? Are you hot?
No, seriously, the reason the taboo is functional in society is because of the potential for child abuse and poor boundaries. You can make an argument that adults can make better choices in this regard once everyone's a consenting adult, but it's still definitely a bad idea to keep it within the family (especially the primary/ nuclear family). Yes, the genetic thing is largely a myth, but there's clearly a social and cultural disadvantage (if you want to talk in anthropological terms) to endogamous rather than exogamous pairings.
I don't think prohibitions through the law are the answer to most issues and I'm not familiar with where the law currently stands. I would say that anything involving minors and children should definitely remain illegal, as should all such sex (whether incest or not). I'm also inclined to say consenting adults within the primary family unit should still also be disallowed since there's the inherent potential for coercion and abuse. And I think for cousins and step-sisters and the like (which I think is legal), move to West Virginia ... mazeltov.
That is all.
24 - Moving Finger
Many of society's laws reflect a history where law was created in reflection of morals and ethics, because the lawmakers judged it was their job to enforce moral codes on their society. What was thought to be immoral was then usually made illegal. Witness the histories of alcohol prohibition in the USA, prostitution, homosexuality, drugs. Many forms of tobacco advertising are illegal in Europe - in my opinion it is only a matter of time before tobacco itself is outlawed. Incest is an example of a morally originating law.
Some of these moral-based laws we may agree with, some of them we may not.
Surely the proper role of law in this context is to protect the weak and innocent members of society from abuse and/or exploitation, and NOT to prevent mature consenting adults from exercising their freedom of choice? The real question, it seems to me, is whether it is right for any society to impose moral-based laws on its adult and mature members?
25 - Society Scroller
I was having a conversation with someone the other day who insisted that while beastility ws illegal that incest was not between consenting adults. But every time I try to google this to find out statutes I get, well, you know what I get!
Can any of you kind folks help me out by giving me sites that cite laws prohibiting incest of any age?
Thank you.