@Thomas,
Thomas wrote:That's not the analogy. The analogy is "you have the right to free speech, unless that speech happens to cause really bad consequences".
That may be your analogy
now, but that's only because you keep shifting your position. You said: "If the rationale for denying the right depends on that ability, how does it
not make sense?" You didn't say anything about consequences, you said that the right can be conditioned on the ability. I'm trying to keep up with your argument, I suggest you do the same.
Thomas wrote:The canonical example in the case of speech is to shout "fire" in a crowded theater. The state can forbid that because it might cause a panic. Here the example is procreating with your close relatives, increasing the risk of offspring with hereditary diseases. Once again, I'm not saying that's a terribly strong rationale. All I'm saying is that even if this is the rationale, it doesn't apply to same-sex incest.
That's a
content restriction in the context of the right of free speech. It has very little to do with a
category restriction in the context of the right to marry. We don't deny people the right of free speech because they're in a class of people who have historically misused that right.
Thomas wrote:joefromchicago wrote:Saying "incestuous couples have a greater chance of producing defective children" or saying "incestuous couples have a lower chance of producing healthy children" is to say the same thing, just in different ways.
No it's not. The initial post in this thread provides a counter-example.
Same-sex incestuous couples have a lower chance of producing defective children, but
not a greater chance of producing defective ones. Your two statements are
not logically equivalent.
That's such a comical misstatement of what I said that I can only conclude you either didn't read what I wrote or you didn't read what
you wrote. Of course saying that same-sex incestuous couples have both a higher and a lower risk of producing defective children would not be logically equivalent. That's why I didn't say that. I wrote that saying incestuous couples have a higher chance of producing defective children or a lower chance of producing healthy (i.e. non-defective) children is to say the same thing. And I'm right.
By the way, you forgot to address this question:
joefromchicago wrote:Certainly, if the state can say to incestuous heterosexual couples "you can't marry because you have an unacceptably high risk of producing defective children," why can't the state say to homosexual couples "you can't marry because you have an unacceptably high risk of not producing any children"?
