German Ethics Council Gets It Partially Right

One of the most famous cases of Genetic Sexual Attraction that was reported in the news media was the Stübing case in Germany, in which consenting adults were prosecuted, convicted, and given criminal sentences for loving each other. Now there may be some legal progress around the corner.

Several news outlets are reporting on this story, and here's what was printed at dw.de... 

The German Ethics Council has called for the repeal of the prohibition of incest between siblings. In a statement released on Wednesday, the majority of the council's members requested that consensual sexual relations between siblings of legal age should no longer be a crime.

That's a good start.

Among other things, the council argued that the risk of genetic impairment to a child born from an incestuous relationship doesn't completely warrant the current ban and that the social taboos remain even without an implemented law.

They've seen through the sham of Discredited Argument #18.

A spokeswoman for Angela Merkel's CDU party, Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker, responded to the Ethics Council's vote saying that the abolition of the law against incest would give out the wrong signal.

"Abolishing criminal punishment against incestuous actions within a family would go completely against protecting the undisturbed development of children," she added.

Huh? How so? This is about grown people. Here's the signal it would give out: We see the folly of prosecuting consenting adults for loving each other.

Nine members of the Ethics Council voted for continued adherence to the ban, highlighting the importance of roles within a family, which they say incest threatens to destabilize.

They never explain how, but let's accept their reason for the sake of argument. Would they support decriminalizing consanguinamory for cases like with the one the article references, in which they were not raised together and thus did not have those roles? Or was the "destabilization" thing just an excuse to mask their personal prejudice? I think we know the answer.

Two members of the council abstained from the vote.

Statistically, at is very likely at least one if not more of the people on council have personal experience with a sibling that was positive.

An adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion, should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (or any of those without the others) with any and all consenting adults. This is a a small step in the right direction.