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To: Travis McGee
Why only two persons? What's so important about two people forming a marriage? If two men or two women can marry, why not three or five?

As a point of law, marriage is a government institution to begin with, and so the government may regulate that institution accordingly. The correct parallel would be that between sodomy & adultery, not between sodomy & bigamy.

And by what rationale may a state now forbid bestiality, or consensual (in the will) necrophilia or cannibalism?

Many states (including Texas) don't forbid bestiality - and really have no legal basis for doing so except as a form of animal cruelty. As for necrophilia, I think that's outlawed in only 24 states; forty years ago it was legal in every state. However, it has been decided that one's dignity in life extends somewhat to dignity in death, and so both necrophilia and cannibalism falls under that realm (i.e. desecration). I'm altogether uncertain how the law would regard an outright contractual agreement by one person to permit his or her sexual use and/or consumption after death....

After this ruling, every father is free to spend 18 years seducing his children, and taking them as sex partners on their 18th birthdays, and even marrying them.

On the final point, marriage itself is a government institution which the government may regulate accordingly. As for the first point, seduction prior to the age of consent would still violate child welfare laws. As for the middle point, that's slightly more problematic, but it's generally agreed that incest prohibitions pass the rational review threshold due to the state's interest in regulating inbreeding..

9 posted on 06/27/2003 9:08:08 AM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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To: AntiGuv
incest prohibitions pass the rational review threshold due to the state's interest in regulating inbreeding.

Yes, because there is substantial risk of causing harm to any offspring, thus violating the rights of said offspring.

12 posted on 06/27/2003 10:01:00 AM PDT by sourcery (The Evil Party thinks their opponents are stupid. The Stupid Party thinks their opponents are evil.)
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To: AntiGuv
it's generally agreed that incest prohibitions pass the rational review threshold due to the state's interest in regulating inbreeding..

OK, but your argument here sets a bad precedent :

If the state has an interest (question: what type of interest, and would it hold up in a court of law?) in regulating (read: preventing) the effects of inbreeding (read: deformity or undesriable mental or physical traits) what is to prevent the government from preventing breeding by other "undesirables" that has a self-proclaimed "interest" in breeding? Preventing two alcoholics from having kids? Forcing abortions on pregnant mentally disabled people? Making it a felony for obese people to have children since their kids will likely be obese, thus being a burden on health resources and generally being unpleasant to look at.

It dangerously comes close to setting a precedent for a form of eugenics.

Let me add the usual disclaimer that I think incest is abhorrent, although to be fair, marriage between cousins -including first cousins- is legal in something like 30 states (not all of them redneck states either), and America is one of the few places where there is a taboo on it in Western Civilization, and studies show that there is not that much risk of heightened genetic deformity in the offspring of incestious parents.

However, you can't have your cake and eat it too on this one. You can't say on the one hand that government shouldn't be allowed in the bedrooms because government doesn't have the right to judge whether the acts of these people are moral or not, and then say that it is OK in some cases to judge these people's acts as moral or immoral. Because then it becomes obvious that we're making subjective judgements on morality based on popular opinion. Gays are popular, relatively speaking. Incestious cousins are not. But our Constitution is founded on principle, not trends. What goes for one interest group should go for another.

And anyway, your argument doesn't hold based on the idea that there is a health interest in preventing incestuous sex because one could also make the argument that gay sex puts a burden on the healthcare system by allowing the convenient spread of HIV and a myriad of other STDs. Again, these are subjective opinions, but to say it's OK for gays but not for others is clearly playing favorites.

Let's face it, all these laws are based on morality. And that's *JUST FINE* because the 10th Amendment generally allows states to make laws to reflect their own values and morality, provided they don't violate the Constitutional rights we all possess.
13 posted on 06/27/2003 10:15:00 AM PDT by Conservative til I die (They say anti-Catholicism is the thinking man's anti-Semitism; that's an insult to thinking men)
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To: AntiGuv
Balderdash. The state would have more reason to forbid women over 40 from having first children, rather than incest, if inbreeding was the concern. The state would absolutely forbid marriage between tay-sachs carriers, for example, but they don't.

A father may now seduce his children (not touching them "improperly" and bed them on their 18th birthday. It's consensual, and private!

15 posted on 06/27/2003 11:12:15 AM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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