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Charge: Father, Daughter Married (Is it Okay With Sandra Day O'Connor?)
Mobile Register ^ | 07/25/03 | KAREN TOLKKINEN

Posted on 07/25/2003 10:39:04 AM PDT by nickcarraway

Authorities accuse couple of illegal incestuous union

A Mobile County grand jury has said that a Theodore husband and wife may really be father and daughter and ought to be tried for incest.

Carrol Eugene Ferdinandsen, 53, and Alice Faye Ferdinandsen, 30, were arrested Thursday and charged with incest and fraud in connection with their May 2 marriage in a civil ceremony in Mobile County. They were indicted in June.

According to Mobile County court records, Alice was the third child of Carrol and Shirley Faye Ferdinandsen, and her mother filed for divorce when Alice was only 4 months old. Her mother said Thursday that she later met and married Charles Stewart, who Alice listed as her father on her marriage license application.

Up to that point, Alice had used "Ferdinandsen" as her last name, according to court records.

Incestuous marriages are forbidden in all states, in part due to fears about genetic mutation and child abuse. They still occur, though rarely, according to a survey of news articles from around the country.

The Ferdinandsens could not be reached for comment Thursday. They were still being held in the Mobile County Metro Jail, with bond set at $8,500 for each, officials said.

Family members said they had heard about the marriage and disapproved of the relationship.

"My father is completely convinced that she's not his daughter, no blood relation at all," David Ferdinandsen, who said he is Carrol's son and Alice's older brother. He's tried to discourage his father from the relationship, he said, but his father won't listen.

Alice's mother, whose last name is now Crayne, said Carrol is definitely Alice's father. She didn't meet Charles Stewart until Alice was 3 or 4 years old, she said.

"I told her she was stupid for marrying her own daddy," Shirley Crayne said. "I told him he was crazy and stupid. I told her I didn't ever want to hear from her again."

Crayne started crying during an interview Thursday. It hurts so bad, she said, because Alice is her youngest child and she worked hard taking care of the children when they were young.

After the divorce, the couple's three children were placed in foster care, David Ferdinandsen said. They were there for five years, he said. They went to live with their mother, and later moved in with their father, he said.

Crayne said Alice sometimes called Carrol "Daddy" and sometimes just "Carrol."

Crayne said she would scold her daughter when she used her father's first name.

During the 1980s, Carrol and Alice went to Illinois, staying for months, David Ferdinandsen said. When they returned, Alice went back to school, he said.

According to Mobile County Circuit Court records, Carrol pleaded guilty to second-degree rape in 1989. The records do not identify the victim and prosecutors could not be reached for comment Thursday. He spent a year in jail.

Alice moved to Texas, where she got a boyfriend and a job at a hamburger stand, her mother said. But in the mid-1990s, Carrol came looking for her and she ended up moving back with him to Theodore, according to her mother and brother. They've been together ever since, relatives said.

Crayne said she never heard that Carrol claimed that Alice wasn't his daughter until just a few years ago. Now Alice believes it, too, she said.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Alabama; US: Arkansas
KEYWORDS: constitution; incest; lawrencevtexas; mobilehome; mobility; oconnor; privacy; supremecourt
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To: Elsie
Do you REALLY mean this?

In general, God does not intervene with people who are sinning.

Lot was different. God was paying attention to this guy. He had been actively messing with Lot and the people around him. God made a habit of getting in the way of the free will of the people around Lot. Turning his wife to salt for exercising her free will is no a laze faire attitude. Blinding some dudes because they were exercising their free will by wanting a little angle butt is pretty intrusive. You would at least think God could have prevented Lot from getting it up during the two nights of the drinking parties.

181 posted on 07/25/2003 5:02:42 PM PDT by Jeff Gordon
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To: dubyaismypresident
See #176.
182 posted on 07/25/2003 5:06:30 PM PDT by Luis Gonzalez (I am la Cuba libre.)
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To: Jeff Gordon
I'm speechless.............
183 posted on 07/25/2003 5:10:35 PM PDT by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: Luis Gonzalez
You should not assume anything at all, specifically about what I believe in.

True. However, I can give you benefit of the doubt and assume you are logical and rational.

If you can present no rational argument as to why a sterile adult father and sterile adult daughter should not get married then I assume you would act rational and say it would be ok. If this is not the case and you are not a rational thinker, please forgive me.

Note: We are not talking about what YOU would do with your daughters. We are talking about OTHER people who are doing others no harm.

184 posted on 07/25/2003 5:11:37 PM PDT by Jeff Gordon
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To: Jeff Gordon
You want me to make a rational argument to debate an irrational question?

Well, we can begin by asking ourselves just exactly what percentage of the population out there would A) be sterile, B) want to marry one of their children, and C) be sterile and want to marry one of their children.

Once you figure out what that infinitesimal percentage would be, then we can talk about the fact that these are insignificant numbers in respect to the general population at large, and that laws cannot be enacted that will be 100% rational, 100% of the time.

I would like to also point out that while it has always been perfectly fine for a man and a woman to have sex, it has never led to a man having sex with a minor child, and while it has also been perfectly normal for a man to marry a woman, this has never led to a general acceptance of a man marrying his daughter.

How is that relevant?

It's about as relevant as raising the specter of incestous marriages on a debate about consensual sex between unrelated adults.

However, and if you can't see the difference between a father/daughter incestous relationship, and two unrelated adults engaging in consensual sex, then I would say that I am not the one being irrational here.
185 posted on 07/25/2003 7:06:24 PM PDT by Luis Gonzalez (I am la Cuba libre.)
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To: Luis Gonzalez
Nice faint. Lots of strawman arguments. Lots of avoiding the question. Let's try again...

Do you want to prevent an adult and sterile father and daughter from getting married?

We not talking about minors or possible genitic problems. We are talking about two people acting in ways that can not possibly hurt you other than offending your beliefs.

186 posted on 07/25/2003 7:20:06 PM PDT by Jeff Gordon
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To: Jeff Gordon
I answered your question, unfortunately, you seem to be unable to understand the response, and instead you continue trying to bring this debate into my personal feelings.

I don't "want" to do anything.

Do you?
187 posted on 07/25/2003 7:24:04 PM PDT by Luis Gonzalez (I am la Cuba libre.)
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To: Luis Gonzalez
I don't "want" to do anything.

That is too bad. How do you manage to get up in the morning?

188 posted on 07/25/2003 7:36:31 PM PDT by Jeff Gordon
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To: Jeff Gordon
I do just fine thank you very much.

It would however seem to me that the sort of irrelevant quagmires that you seem to revel in would render you immobile in the morning.
189 posted on 07/25/2003 7:38:23 PM PDT by Luis Gonzalez (I am la Cuba libre.)
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To: nickcarraway
"I told her she was stupid for marrying her own daddy," Shirley Crayne said. "I told him he was crazy and stupid. I told her I didn't ever want to hear from her again."

What can I say...long live the "White Trash" hicks!... they never fail to live up to the nick! Hurrah!

190 posted on 07/25/2003 7:50:07 PM PDT by danmar ("The two most common elements in the Universe is Hydrogen and Stupidity" Albert Einstein)
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To: dead
I think marrying your first cousin is legal everywhere.

No sh!t...my cousin want to get laid by me too...she said it would be just fine, no rules broken! That was quite few years back, never the less it floored me!

191 posted on 07/25/2003 7:57:08 PM PDT by danmar ("The two most common elements in the Universe is Hydrogen and Stupidity" Albert Einstein)
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To: dead
When Santorum had his flap back in April, there were a couple of journalists who actually bothered to think about what he said instead of blindly attacking him. One of them provoked this lengthly thread discussing incest:

Incest Repellent? If gay sex is private, why isn't incest?Post 38 is particularly interesting, a history of incest laws in the United States.

Also, the original article included this tidbit, of Human Rights Campaign making the same arguments against incest that most people here on FR would against sodomy, but unable to articulate why he believed one deserved protection while the other didn't:

On Wednesday, I asked Smith that question. "We're talking about people; they're talking about specific acts," he said. "It has nothing to do with these other situations that are largely frowned upon by the vast majority of Americans." Is being frowned upon by the vast majority of Americans an acceptable standard for deciding which practices shouldn't be constitutionally protected? "It's not part of the discussion," Smith replied. I asked whether it was constitutionally OK for states to ban incest. "Yes," he said. Why? "There's a compelling interest for the state to ban that practice," he said. What's the compelling interest? For that, Smith referred me to HRC General Counsel Kevin Layton.

Layton pointed out that laws against incest "already exist side by side" with the Supreme Court's current right-to-privacy doctrine. From this, he inferred that the doctrine doesn't cover those laws. But laws against gay sex also exist side by side with the privacy doctrine. If coexistence implies compatibility, then Santorum wins on both counts: States can ban incest and gay sex.

I asked Layton whether states should be allowed to ban incest. "They have a right to do that, as long as they have a rational basis," he said. Do they have such a basis? "It's not my point to argue what a state's rational basis would be for regulating cousin marriage," Layton replied. "The only way the court's decision in [the sodomy] case would go down the slippery slope to incest is if legally they were the same thing, which they're not." Why not? Essentially, Layton reasoned that it isn't his job to explain why incest and gay sex are different. It's Santorum's job to explain why they're similar.

But HRC's own arguments hint at similarities. Like Smith, a defender of brother-sister incest could accuse Santorum of "disparaging an entire group of Americans" and "advocating that a certain segment of American society be disavowed from constitutional protection." In its brief to the Supreme Court in the sodomy case, HRC maintains that "criminalizing the conduct that defines the class serves no legitimate state purpose," since gays "are not less productive—or more dangerous—members of the community by mere dint of their sexual orientation." They sustain "committed relationships" and "serve their country in the military and in the government." Fair enough. But couldn't the same be said of sibling couples? Don't laugh. Cousin couples are already making this argument.


192 posted on 07/25/2003 9:20:40 PM PDT by NovemberCharlie
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To: Flurry
I think incest, polygamy, marring a young girl as young as 10 years old, and many other behaviors are not proper in contemporary culture. Mind you that only in the last couple of hundred years that society changed on these issues. People, however, practiced such life for thousands of years. Even, now in Utah, and one billion Moslems still practice polygamy, and child marriages (9-10 years old girls). On a side note, I read recently that the US did not have right and left shoes till the civil war!

I certainly do not support these old barbaric behaviors, but if you think of it in terms of historical perspectives, you can understand how backward type people may still practice polygamy or marry young 12 year old girls?

193 posted on 07/28/2003 6:08:53 AM PDT by philosofy123
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To: Protagoras
My mothers family is from Arkansas and Texas. I can assure you that more then "one branch" exists in a family.

Let me guess...your from the Eastcoast or California right?
194 posted on 07/28/2003 6:30:30 AM PDT by FeliciaCat
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To: philosofy123
Yes I understand the past and other cultures. But that doesn't prevent civilization.
195 posted on 07/28/2003 6:31:32 AM PDT by Conspiracy Guy (!!!!!!! sdrawkcab si enilgat ym ,em pleh esaelP)
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To: FeliciaCat
Let me guess...your from the Eastcoast or California right?

Let me guess, you have no sense of humor? :^]

196 posted on 08/04/2003 3:29:55 PM PDT by Protagoras (Putting government in charge of morality is like putting pedophiles in charge of children.)
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To: Hillary's Lovely Legs

Was there a blood test to comfirm he was her father? The way it looks alice's mother seemed busy remarrying and divorse alot doesn't it put a "?" to the sexual activities in her life and yet they never charged the father with child sexual-abuse did he sexually abuse alice when she was younger or not? reasoning would state he did why else would she want to marry her father?


197 posted on 07/16/2004 11:58:53 AM PDT by MySistersKeeper (Who's to say the bible is wrong? Example .Adam &Eve eve a cloan who married cain or seth?)
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To: nickcarraway

OK "?" Did they take a BLOOD test to Confirm he's her father? and on the cousin approach what about Jerry Lee Lewis did he not marry is relative? also hypethetical scenerio: What if two siblings who where adopted out as children at a young age, having two different last names now, found each other at "oh around 16 or so" and was attracted to each other, not knowing the attraction was biological but chemical love like, had sex and then decided to marry is this a case for the supreme courts and if they said they couldn't be married then are they charged with incest and imprisoned and if they countinue to have sex afterwards are they charged again?


198 posted on 07/16/2004 12:15:40 PM PDT by MySistersKeeper (Who's to say the bible is wrong? Example .Adam &Eve eve a cloan who married cain or seth?)
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To: TRY ONE

OK "?" Jerry Lee Lewis, Did he not marry is relative? If "Incest is Best" then why we all complaining? :) Usa has to many laws that contradict themselfs. just like the law for statutory rape isn't that for the girls benefit and sexual discrimenation to guys I mean come on a 14-17yr old boy can be charged for statutory rape but a girl that is 14-17yr old can't "?" Doesn't girls mature faster then boys?
So if Daddy and daughter are adults "Two Consenting Adults" then it should be A-Ok. Now if the make a baby?, Then using the gene pool law's I can see that happening! Does europe have laws like this? The Man Law: A male cannot transport a Female across states line for sex! ?Man are all married people in trouble?" ROFLMAO


199 posted on 07/16/2004 12:48:06 PM PDT by MySistersKeeper (Who's to say the bible is wrong? Exmple : Genesis & Exodus? aren't we all bro's&sis's?)
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To: dubyaismypresident
I'd love to hear how the Supremes can uphold this (anti-incest)law in light of the reasoning in Lawrence v. Texas.

I think this should be pushed in front of the so called Supremes. Also multiple people and animals. Let's break this thing now instead of a slow death.

200 posted on 07/16/2004 12:55:15 PM PDT by stevio
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