Attention Outgoing State Governors

There are state Governors in the US who are rapidly approaching the end of their terms as Governor and will be leaving that office.

We are respectfully imploring you to use your executive powers to pardon any of your residents convicted of crimes due to having consensual (to be redundant) sex with an adult under anti-incest laws, whether they are currently in the justice system or not, even if they have since passed away,

Let's be clear. We're not talking about assault or child molestation. We're talking about sex between consenting adults (or between minors close in age to each other), still criminalized in your states. The laws should be changed, but since they haven't been yet, please have mercy on these people.

This plea is directed at the following Governors:

Matt Mead - Wyoming
Scott Walker - Wisconsin
Bill Haslam - Tennessee
Dennis Daugaard - South Dakota
Jerry Brown - California
John Hickenlooper - Colorado
Dannel Malloy - Connecticut
Rick Scott - Florida
Nathan Deal - Georgia
Butch Otter - Idaho
Bruce Rauner - Illinois
Jeff Colyer - Kansas
Paul LePage - Maine
Rick Snyder - Michigan
Mark Dayton - Minnesota
Brian Sandoval - Nevada
Susana Martinez - New Mexico
John Kasich - Ohio
Mary Fallin - Oklahoma

If we've missed an outgoing Governor, we apologize.


This plea is also directed at Governors of US territories: If you have the power to do so, pardon or at least commute the sentences of those listed as criminals due to consanguineous affections.

If you are the Governor or someone on the Governor's staff, or someone with access to the Governor, please act quickly to get this done. We know time is very limited.

There is no good reason these people should suffer any more for having had a physical relationship.

Let's stop wasting public resources on treating these people like they are a threat to anyone. If they were convicted of additional crimes relating to the investigation, their arrest, prosecution, etc., please consider pardoning them of those, too.

Do the kind, merciful, and just thing as you end your term as Governor. Get on the right side of history!

Please pardon!

Philled Up

The Dr. Phil Show is one of those shows for which there is little benefit for someone looking to present the reality of polyamourous or polygamous or consanguinamorous relationships to participate. This show is not unique in these respects, but it is our example for today.

It's Dr. Phil's show (hence the name), and Dr. Phil, unless I've missing something (which is possible, because I rarely watch or read anything by him) professes monogamy as the ideal for all and probably is also biased again consanguinamory. The show runs on commercial television, which means it is advertiser-supported. The target audience has fears and biases against ethical nonmonogamy. Dr. Phil's staff controls the microphones, the editing, and everything else. It is highly unlikely someone in an ethically non-monogamous or consanguinamorous relationship is going to be allowed to portray their relationship as anything other than some sort of terrible mess or abusive. They're going to be expected to be lectured by Dr. Phil.

Whatever one thinks of Thom Miller of Mansfield, Ohio, a self-proclaimed polygamist who has been in the news lately, there was no way any polygamist was going to be portrayed well on this show. Dillon Carr reported at richlandsource.com...

Valerie Spruill Raising GSA Awareness

Valerie Spruill, a woman I blogged about the other day because she unknowingly married her genetic father, continues to make the news. CNN picked up her story in this piece by Chelsea J. Carter…

It was a dark secret. The kind that destroys lives, devastates families and decimates faith.

That’s a bit negative and overly dramatic. He provided half of the genetic material that made her. And they loved each other.

Spruill met and married her husband-father in Akron and settled in Doylestown, a working class suburb of about 2,300.

It was her second marriage. Spruill was a nice man, a good provider. He was kind to her three children from her previous marriage.

"We had a good life," she said.

Isn’t that what is important???

In recent days, she has been in contact with a couple who found out after they were married that they were brother and sister.

They told her, she said, that her story is helping them deal with their own experience.

"They are trying to be friends now," Spruill said.

I wonder if they are people we already know about? It is unfortunate that they felt a need to end their marriage.

Others, though, have been less kind.

"They've said things like 'Some secrets should stay secrets,'" she said.

They’re hateful people who want to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the truth.

Spruill, herself, has three children and eight grandchildren. She struggled with telling her children that the man they believed was their step-father was their grandfather.

A therapist "advised me to tell my kids," she said. "I told them about two years ago. They are remarkable. They are handling it better than I am."

In recent days, shortly before the news broke, she also told her grandchildren.

"They have been so supportive. They are telling me they love me, telling me they will do whatever I need," she said.

That’s as it should be. Good for them!

In her spare time, since retiring from the accounting department where she worked for 34 years at Goodyear, she has been writing down her story with the hopes of publishing it.

It could make a great book and a great movie. Whether or not this was a case of Genetic Sexual Attraction, I don’t know. I have not read anything about how she and her husband met and what her feelings were like then. This case involves some of the same issues as GSA either way. In none of the stories have I seen an example of why her marriage was a problematic, other than her feelings about consanguinamory. This indicates to me that if we change our attitude towards consanguinamory, there will be less suffering.

Did Valerie Spruill Experience GSA?

Most people who experience Genetic Sexual Attraction are aware of their genetic relationship, or have reason to believe it is a possibility. Others, though, fall in love with a strong feeling of attraction, build a life together, even marry and have children only to discover their close genetic relation later.

I like to point out that what matters most is how the people in any relationship treat each other. If they are right for each other, if they love each other, if they treat each other well, what does it matter what their races, genders, ages (provided they are adults), or level of consanguinity are?

Bob Dyer, Akron Beacon Journal columnist (Ohio, USA), brings is the story of Valerie Spruill and the marriage she had. It starts off with a negative approach...

Valerie Spruill (Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal)

The next time you think you’re having a bad day, image how Valerie Spruill felt when she discovered that her husband and her father are the same person.

And what exactly is the problem? I know there are people going "eew!" but why? They aren't attracted to their fathers or daughters because the Westermarck Effect has repelled them. Or they hate their father or daughter. But that wasn't the case here. They were attracted to each other and loved each other. So what is the problem?

It wasn't until after her husband died that a relative told her that her husband was her genetic father and Valerie was able to confirm with DNA evidence.

Not that her life had been a breeze four decades earlier when she found out at the age of 9 that the man she thought was her father was actually her grandfather, and that a person who had been identified as a “family friend” was actually her mother.

Spruill didn’t learn until later that her mom also was one of three “night ladies,” as she terms it, who testified in the infamous 1980 corruption trial of Summit County Probate Judge James Barbuto.

Why would anyone volunteer this kind of information?

Because Valerie Spruill wants to be an example. The 60-year-old Doylestown woman wants to show other folks born into miserable situations that they can still lead good, productive, fulfilling lives.

Good for her!