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Overturning Roe and Obergefell Leads to … Cousin Marriage?
In a comment elsewhere, I was pondering the meaning of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. While liberals are having a tizzy about Justice Clarence Thomas’ comments about gay marriage and contraception, I think they might be looking at it the wrong way.
Obergefell requires all states and territories to recognize same-sex marriages from any and all states, to uphold them, and to provide for them as a function of due process and equal protection. Same-sex marriage cannot be banned.
If this is true, then cousin marriage laws must be overturned, based upon discriminatory practices and gender discrimination, as well as discrimination based upon sexual orientation.
According to Wikipedia (that font of knowledge!), nineteen states outright allow first-cousin marriage. California, of course, is one such haven. If someone wants to marry their cousin? CA is their place! Want to co-habit and have sexual relations? California, here we come! Strangely enough, states like Mississippi hold it to be out outright illegal and do not recognize out-of-state first-cousin marriages. Those wacky, backward southern states!
If Obergefell insists that same-sex marriages be recognized, all it takes is one gay cousin couple moving to any of the 19 states where it is illegal and we start to have some conflict. While Kennedy’s decision indicates that they must be held to the same standard as heterosexual couples, some of the laws only would apply to the heterosexuals and not the homosexual couples.
For example, some of these states have rules in place regarding marriage only if over the age of 55 (or 65) or one/both parties are infertile. This, of course, discriminates against those marriages that take place between a person with a penis and a person with a vagina. Those who cannot procreate are free to marry, as presumably homosexual cousins are, unless the state insists upon creating an undue burden upon otherwise healthy homosexual adults to have permanent medical procedures performed in order to marry. If they are held to the same standard, they simply must! Additionally, this calls into question the ability to have children as being a reason to withhold what is a right under equal protection. Since in vitro and donation of eggs or sperm is borderline commonplace at this time, what place does procreation truly hold within state laws, except as a placeholder for bigotry!
Thomas’ comments are much more frightening than even liberals know.
Published in General
If you want to blow the whole thing up at once, try a father/son marriage.
Also, I’ll just leave this here:
https://ricochet.com/262296/marrying-my-dog-inc/
I love you both. Lol
I saved that post years ago, but only the text. I had forgotten the source.
While it’s humorous, I’m not trying to dehumanize gay people or compare them to animals. It’s a bit unkind and unfair.
But what I am saying is that if they’re going to make certain standards, they’ve got to hold them true everywhere (if that’s the schtick). If they’re not, the logic doesn’t hold and we can just have freedom for the states to do what they want. Although with health insurance, I’m sure that there’s a certain amount of interstate commerce involved (covering one’s gay partner’s hospitalization while traveling to a DOMA state).
I have a first cousin who married, I don’t know, maybe her 3rd (?) cousin. He was our Great Aunt’s first husband’s grandson, who she met at a family reunion.
Not sure if it had anything to do with it, but both of their kids are “special needs.”
As long as Progressives neither have kids nor adopt them, I don’t care what they do to each other.
Does Obergefell require that ALL gay marriages be recognised, or just that gay marriage cannot be banned? If the latter, then gay first cousin marriages could still be banned because first cousin (rather than banned because gay).
I think there’s a song about that, isn’t there? “I’m my own grandpa.”
I know what song you mean, but it’s not quite THAT complicated. I just had to go back and refresh myself on the connections.
And why just two? Isn’t that discriminatory toward throuples? And what about monogamishts? Shouldn’t we recognize and celebrate people in “open” marriages? I mean, really. What does male-female monogamy, sexual exclusivity, and permanence have to do with marriage?
/sarc off
It’s just a piece of paper.
/sarc
It seems to me a question of where it goes on the stack and what rules you’re using. For instance, if it’s FIFO, then if cousin marriage is banned but gay marriage is allowed, then a gay cousin marriage could not be banned but a cousin gay marriage could.
All gay marriages must be recognized in the US states and territories.
The cousin part is because the reasoning in Obergefell goes across the country. If some states could not have gay marriage, that would be fine. But because it discriminates it’s a no. Thusly with the cousin gay marriages, they would have to demonstrate that even though they meet criteria (can’t have kids, etc) there’s real reason the law must stand.
Because cousins wouldn’t stand, imho. There would be too much pressure to recognize all marriages across all states. So again, all we need is some cousins to go to get married….
It all comes down to standing.
All we need is one healthy gay couple that is not infertile or over the age of 55 (in the appropriate state). If the law for heteros must have the same restrictions for gay folks, then cousins must be infertile or over the age requirements. If that is the case, the law is demanding that otherwise healthy people get sterilized because of their 1) age and 2) sexuality, despite not being able to procreate because the statutes indicate that one party must be sterile/infertile (at least, some require both).
Since Obergefell was reasoned using the Equal Protection clause and the Due Process clause, it would hold in this case as well.
Logic is not my strongest point, but I’m pretty good with family trees and marriage laws. I’m pretty sure this checks out.
For more fun with wiki on consanguine marriage/relations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_incest_in_the_United_States
3rd cousins are far enough removed that diversity of blood lines isn’t an issue. And lack of diversity in blood lines typically needs a couple generations of failing to marry out for real problems to start presenting.
This seems an odd way to begin a thread on the Roosevelts, but, ok…
As a genetic freak myself (and I call myself that in anticipation of what others say), I can not confirm that. Real problems can present with zero consanguinity based upon dominance/recessive patterns and certain genetic proclivities. A great example is how heritable disease is in my family on the female side. We have three generations straight with a “rare disease”. Thing is, it’s not all that rare (they’re starting to find out) and there are multiple contributing factors. Once you are related, those same factors tend to come up a weeeeee bit more.
I have a friend with a hemophiliac son, so I get it.
If your Great Aunt isn’t his grandmother then there is no relation.
And what I’m saying is that we have surrendered the right to say that 2+2=4. Sometimes it’s 5, sometimes it’s 3. Guess we have to ask the government what it is today.
When marriage becomes other than one man and one woman, then there is no longer a limiting principle. The slippery slope is real and we are sliding down it now.
I assure you that neither am I dehumanizing gay people, nor comparing them to animals. We are talking about standards.
This confused me too. I think she is taking the logical and likely consequence of the first few lines of the sixth paragraph into account when summarizing the argument to date by the end of the fifth. So I can see where she’s going with it — specifically, if the fertility considerations are found to be disparate impact etc. But that makes this a three-consideration problem, not two. Which is why I started off with father/son marriage. I mean, that’s not going to produce any offspring, and we are no longer willing to refuse accommodation based on obsolete bourgeois morality.
While this sounds like snark, it is in fact happening today. I don’t mean done, but happening.
I assume that all present are equally, totally mortified at the pedo-pushers trying to get their child rape legalized. Of course we are. Yet if we are not… well who is to judge? Once five out of nine justices say they do not object, then none of you are allowed to be so hateful, you bigots.
Love wins.
Well, as long as they’re straight. That’s the important thing.
The generations get less and less straight… oh noes!
It seems to me that the Obergefell decision stands on the same “house of cards” foundation as Roe vs. Wade. Isn’t marriage supposed to be regulated only by the States since it is not mentioned in the Constitution?
She was. I wasn’t very clear with that description.
It should be up to the states, just like abortion.
The existence of these laws prohibiting cousin marriage (as well as brother-sister, father-daughter, mother-son marriage) show that for many people and the state governments they elect, marriage and human procreation are intertwined. Which undercuts the foundational premise of the Obergefell decision. Justice Kennedy built the entire opinion on the premise that the only reason people might oppose same sex marriage was bigotry. He didn’t even give a passing glance to the commonly held view that the state government’s primary interest in marriage was its tie to producing children. And a same sex couple is not going to produce children. All of the “well what about . . . [example of complementary sex couple who cannot or will not have children]” cases are at the edges, and we do not (or should not) develop policy based on the edges. We develop policy based on the vast majority of cases. Plus, identifying in advance those complementary sex couples who cannot or will not have children would require state intrusion into personal matters that most people would find unacceptable. Justice Kennedy exhibited his own bigotry and narrow-mindedness by insulting the many people who hold marriage and procreation to be intertwined for public policy reasons.