Gay Marriage

Fair enough. If I have assumed incorrectly about you, accept my mea culpa.

But let me explore your point of view a bit more, and ask you the same question I've posed to CI and PD: Do you think the government should be compelled to allow a brother and sister to marry? Please expand your answer (tell me why you answer "yes" or "no"). Thanks.

Lest you think I'm laying a trap for you let me write straight out that I ask this question because I think the effort to allow same-gender unions eventually begs this question. Having children used to be central to marriage, but has become less so. This, in part, has been given as justification for expanding the definition of marriage to allow for same-gender pairings. The thing is, isn't it the issue of genetic problems stemming from the coupling of siblings that led to the bar against siblings marrying? If we are now stating that having children is no longer central to marriage, and using this as part of our argument for same-gender unions, haven't we cast aside the one argument against siblings having the right to marry?

If two adults who happen to be brother and sister wish to marry and have no intention of having children, doesn't it infringe on their "civil rights" every bit as much as when we tell two men they cannot marry?

I am genuinely interested in your (or anyone's) thoughts on this. Thanks.

scrat

What you are searching for (and it is a completely valid exercise) are instances where the government, in a free state, might be justified in constraining mature individual choice regarding unions/marriage.

There seems to me to be three aspects to this question: legal ramifications regarding property and rights; health ramifications regarding progeny; and 'moral' ramifications regarding who ought to marry or unite with whom.

The property and rights issue (as in right to collect spousal benefits, etc) is one which I am not much concerned regarding. I assume that the issues or complexities that arise here will not be terribly difficult to work out, regardless if we are talking about a same gender married couple or even a group of six geriatric lovers up at Singing Oaks Retirement Home. Hell, we can just put a couple of Enron or Haliburton lawyers on it.

As to the second question, the health ramifications, I think there is just the one which you allude to that might apply here uniquely.

Actually, I doubt this assumption. Most cultures, but certainly not all, have had some rules prohibiting incest. As these cultural groups have commonly been quite geographically isolated from each other, we might properly hypothesize a naturally occuring (gene based) propensity to get out of the house and mingle with the Hatfields. An example from primatology...baboon females universally leave their home troup (giving up all status and all existing support connections) to join with, and mate with, members of the non-related troop. The gain, genetically, is variation.

That, of course, is different from prevention of 'deformity'. I recall reading a (I think it was) Scientifc American article years ago which had studied the rates of deformity/abnormality in the progeny of incest, and the rates were not particularly high. I've tried to find this article, but haven't been able to. But once again, we have to consider other such causal links to birth defects...eg, fetal alcohol syndrome, military exposed to agent orange, etc., and then consider how the 'state' ought to proceded in a free nation.

And there is the historical question here of when did any particular human culture figure out that the young inherit characteristics from the parents. Perhaps in the neolithic, when animals and plants became domesticated. Perhaps earlier. But it would have been an empirical observation made by some individual who would then have had to convince his cultural group that such a mechanism existed, and that the cause of blue eyes wasn't really from humping under a clear blue sky, or whatever. (I suppose that we ought to note here too that, in the Old Testament, there is really quite a lot of incest going on, and it apparently wasn't problematical at the time).

The third aspect here, the 'moral' notions, is the really interesting one, at least to me. Such moral codes may well arise out of a common 'yuck!' response (the genetic propensity thing...not unlike staying away from a pile of Uncle Fred's poop), or out of empirical observation leading to law formulation (as when it was discovered that high disease rates were coincident with drinking Thames water where effluent was concentrated), or the codes could arise out of completely false notions (leaking blood is bad, therefore menstruation is bad) which just get carried up through time and are enforced for reasons of group solidarity.

The reason I find this third aspect the most interesting one is because it is precisely this group solidarity through maintenance of traditions (give me that old time religion) which pretty transparently applies to the 'homosexuality is bad' notion.

There always seems to have been a conflict between a 'conservative' or traditionalist urge and a 'liberal' or 'screw you and your arbitrary rules' urge in human groups.

But...and this is the biggy...the Constitution is not a conservative document. As one of the SC justices said (I'm paraphrasing from memory) "the constitution allows for, is designed for, an expanding sphere of liberty".

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Gay-Marriage-Daley.html

Yay.

soz

Yay indeed.

But it is pretty widely believed that the social/religious prohibition on incest stems from the reality of the genetic problems inherent in such pairings. Your notion of a drive to "get out and mix up the genes" might well be true, but isn't the drive to achieve ideal genetic pairings just an extension of the drive to avoid bad ones? Seems like the same thing, stated in a different way. Further, most cultures have had some rules prohibiting homosexuality, and we're not here arguing that we should continue to play by those just because we did in the past, right?


Ah... and that's my point (or at least one of my points). We are having this discussion precisely because we are moving away from previously held societal prohibitions against homosexuality, so to argue that we can justify continued adherence to our taboo against incest simply because it has a historical basis is to give credence to the argument that we should retain the taboo against homosexuality as well.


Just so... so how long before a brother and sister petition the court for the right to marry?

I appreciate your comments, and am not blind to the depth of knowledge behind them, but I'm not sure whether you answered my question or simply added to the reasons why it is a puzzler. Can you make a simple, straightforward case for allowing same-gender unions and disallowing incestuous ones, that doesn't simply come down to "it's okay for government to deny certain people the rights they give to others", because if that is a valid argument in the case of incestuous pairings, it must also be valid for same-gender pairings.

Thanks for the excellent exchanges!

Regards,
Scrat

There is evidence that homosexuality and prevention of incest support the same overall evolutionary goal of propogation of the species. Babies need not only be conceived, need not only be born, need not only be blessed with genetic variety, but need to survive and thrive. Studies have shown (can look for 'em) that homosexual "aunts" and "uncles" help with this last survive and thrive piece of the puzzle. If every adult has a dependent or two, babies are less likely to survive and thrive than if there are available adults to help care for them.

Sozobe - Forgive me for being dense here. Let me accept for now your assertion that homosexuality serves the propagation of the species. Help me understand your argument that prevention of incest also serves this goal. Thanks.

Genetic diversity = good.

How do homosexuals add to genetic diversity?

scrat
Yes, but I'm arguing that there is good reason to question this assumption/belief, that in fact the source of the 'taboo' application to incest comes from different sources than from empirical observation. Consider that IF it were found, via rigorous and proper studies, that incest led to no significant degree of malformation in offspring, I doubt there would be brothers and sisters rushing to the alter because brothers and sisters inherently tend to find the prospect about as interesting as eating chalk covered in slug slime. Not because we have been socialized to think this way, but because we are born this way. (In the same manner, allowing gays to marry isn't likely to turn you or I into boy-lovers because we - and most humans - are born with a zest for the other gender).

As you and soz discuss above, variation is the evolved goal (the greater the variety of offspring, the greater the chances of some of them surviving). But production of ANY offspring will trump. So a community which is small and isolated will provide fewer mating options, and will evidence less genetic diversity. I won't even mention the Ozarks here.
I am arguing that a historical basis provides no prima facie case for maintenance of any code at all. If it appears from this argument that I would allow incestuous marriage, you would have the correct inference. It's quite conceivable, if not likely, that our growing understanding of the human genome, and our ability to test for and capably predict whether a couple's offspring will have defects, will allow us to ascertain whether a brother and sister will have perfectly OK children. In such a case, there seems no rational reason to 'disallow' such a pairing, other than that which comes out of our 'yuck' response.

I don't mean to present this as a puzzler without answer. It is a tough one because it flies in the face of many uninspected cultural assumptions and taboos. My personal notion is that it really is nobody's business who marries whom...with the caveat that they are adults and informed.

And my appreciation ought to be noted to you for this discussion too.

Not wishing to speak for soz here, I'll just point out that, from a reproductive view, what is required is a two-step process. First, the production of viable offspring, and second, the raising of those offspring to the point where they themselves are actively producing more.

So, a gay couple adopting and raising a child to maturity achieves this second step. Or, for example, taking children from their homes at an early age and raising them in the care of aunts (or some assemblage of community members, as in the kibbutz system, or as done by Spartan society, or as many primate groups do).

Can't an incestuous couple also be aunts and uncles (providing they have other siblings)? Can they not also adopt? Can they not do the same things as a homosexual couple?

McG, you've hit the nail on the head right there. In the case you've described, it is not socially acceptable. That's the whole crux of the argument against it, whether you want to admit it or not. Homosexuality is finally becoming socially acceptable. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it!

All this crap about propagation of the species and how it will affect society is complete bullshit. It all boils down to intolerance, plain and simple.

Obviously you are ignorant of my views on homosexuality and homosexual marriage.

Should we base law on what is socially acceptable? If we do that, who gets to decide what's acceptable and what's not? I am sure that if you polled many people in america, there would quite assuredly be quite a few who find homosexuality unacceptable.

McG, you are right. I don't know your views on this. I was just assuming from past communications with you what you thought. My bad!

So what are your views?

McGentrix, incestuous couples can be aunts and uncles, sure, but that isn't a evolutionary benefit to the incestuous part. Homosexual couples can get their rocks off any way they want and as much as they want and they won't make babies. (Again, I'm talking about from an evolutionary perspective -- adoption et al is one way, but it's other people's babies, and much more in line with the aunt and uncle thing.) People who have the nurturing instinct but can't have their own kids and therefore nurture others' kids are to the benefit of the species as a whole. There is no similar benefit to incestuous pairings, and there are in fact significant costs.

I brought this up specifically to refute Scrat's points, I have mixed feelings as to whether such evolutionary criteria should be the basis of social policy. With incest, I think it is easily shown that there are not only issues related to the health of the offspring (then why can't sterile siblings marry?), but also issues related to the psychological health of the couple, in ways that go way beyond non-related homosexual couples. (Power, definition of "consent", etc., etc.)