Congrats to Pearl Carter and Phil Bailey

A grandmother, Pearl Carter has found love in the arms of a younger man, Phil Bailey. It is making news because he's her biological grandson.

Phil is the son of Pearl's daughter Lynette Bailey, and the pair is braving public horror and even prison by breaking one of the last taboos – incest.

However, the pair makes no apologies for their controversial plan to start their own family.

Good for them. They are showing the world that there’s nothing to be ashamed of, and that their relationship is just as valid as any other.

'I'm not interested in anyone else's opinion,' Pearl says. 'I am in love with Phil and he's in love with me. Soon I'll be holding my son or daughter in my arms and Phil will be the proud dad'.

Phil adds, 'I love Pearl with all my heart. I've always been attracted to older women and I think Pearl is gorgeous.

Shouldn’t they be able to marry if they choose? They're going to have a child through a surrogate, and that child should have the legal protections of a married family, if that is what they want.

Due to Lynette being adopted out, Phil and Pearl didn’t find each other until after Phil was an adult. The article does discuss Genetic Sexual Attraction, and how knowing about that has put them at ease.

In 2006, Phil met his grandmother for the first time.

'From the first moment that I saw him, I knew we would never have a grandmother-grandson relationship,' Pearl remembers happily. 'For the first time in years I felt sexually alive.'

Phil admits that he had the same feelings towards Pearl.

'I wanted to kiss her there and then,' he says. 'My feelings were overwhelming.'

We need more couples like them to come out to the world. Congratulations to them. And read the whole story, which, thankfully, does not have quotes from any bigots.

Misperceptions Should Not Deny Freedom

The opinion staff at the Palm Beach Post, in discussing Huckabee’s recent bigoted comments, wrote that

Incest and polygamy long have been caught up in issues of child abuse and abuse of authority. They are unpopular because, in too many cases, they have not been relationships between consenting adults. Perhaps that’s why the taboo against them remains so strong while the public is becoming more accepting of gay marriages between consenting adults.

This is a rather flimsy attempt to justify prejudice. How often do we hear about domestic violence inside of a heterosexual marriage? And there’s probably some abuse in some same-sex marriages. That there are abusers out there who have perpetuated their abuse against minor family members or when they have had more than one spouse should not bar the rest of us from the freedom to enjoy loving relationships and marriages.

We need to demand fair, well-rounded coverage of and teaching about polyamorous and consanguineous relationships as well as gay and lesbian relationships.

Oh Canada

A man is facing prison in Canada because he had sex with his adult sister. This article calls it “nonconsensual.” The charge, though, is incest, not rape, and you’ll see why if you keep reading.

A former senior officer with the Vancouver Police Department will be sentenced May 5 after pleading guilty to committing incest in an incident involving his sister.

He is 47. She is 46.

The brother and sister had been to the World Police and Fire Games in Vancouver in August 2009, and after drinking at a sports bar, the pair went back to a condominium the brother shared with his girlfriend.

Court heard that the brother later entered the bedroom his sister was in and had unprotected, non-consensual sex with her while both were in an alcohol-induced semi-conscious state.

Sounds to me like they were both intoxicated. If she couldn’t consent because she was drunk, how can he be held criminally responsible if he was drunk as well? They do not indicate that he raped her, though considering that she was married, and considering the bigoted shaming against consanguineous sex to the point of his prosecution, she is definitely under pressure to deny there was consent, or she could be prosecuted as well.

He has resigned from the police force and has to live with the stigma of a ruined reputation, the lawyer said.

Yes, destroy his life because he had sex. What kind of sense is that? What danger does he pose to anyone?

Texas Bigamy Law

Two men were recently sentenced to prison on bigamy charges. They were also sentenced for sexual assault of a child. If they were already going to prison for child abuse, why the bigamy charges and sentencing? It is difficult to care much about a child abuser, but these laws preventing the freedom or marry can be used against anyone.

Both men belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which teaches that plural marriage brings glorification in heaven. Members have been reluctant to talk publicly about such unions, in part because Texas' bigamy statute makes it illegal to even purport to marry more than one person. Many of the FLDS unions are only church-sanctioned, not legally documented, marriages.

So in Texas, it is illegal to even say you are married to more than one person. This needs to change.

I will keep pointing to real people being hurt by a lack of full marriage equality. If Texas had full marriage equality, there also wouldn't be this problem with divorcing married couples of the same-sex.

Polyamory is Not an Anti-African Plot

Sam Lwanga, or “Uncle Sam,” says the sky is falling because a woman loves two men. See what he wrote here.

Yes, I had read about Polyandry, where a woman has two husbands, but the prospect of hearing it from the horse’s mouth was, literally, mouth-watering. I mean, how on earth is this supposed to make sense?

Together, they meet her needs. What is so hard to understand about that?

As it turned out, this was not even polyandry – because the woman is not legally married to the men; it is called polyamory – each person has more than one partner and they are all okay with the situation.

They are all okay with the situation, and it is none of his business. But Sam doesn’t grasp that. He goes on to call the situation troubling, and then describes a hypothetical polyamorous situation, and calling it “madness.”

I don’t know about you, but for me, the idea of sharing a wife or girlfriend is repulsive to the bone.

So don’t do it, Sam.

Your average man wants to achieve things, to accomplish things, to be in control.

Not all men want to be in control. And some who do maintain control even if someone they love also loves another. Open up that closed mind of yours, Sam.

Sam worries about paternity, but as even he realizes, there are DNA tests. There are also things like - calendars and birth control. He also worries about Sexually Transmitted Infections. There are tests and precautions for those.

I actually suspect this thing may be a sinister plot to finish off the African race.

Actually, polyamory exists all over the world with people of different races, and besides, polyamory is not destructive.

He goes to worry about a slippery slope, in which a mother and her adult son are going to fall in love and have a child. But he never explains what would be wrong with that.

We are inching ever closer to a world where sons marry mothers and brothers and sisters are free to do their thing provided they are consenting adults. Crazy!

It isn’t crazy, and it has been going on forever. It should be legal globally and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it. But let others have their happiness.

Huckabee's Bigotry Not Fully Repudiated

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Republican who sought his party’s nomination for President in 2008, has reminded the world that he’s against marriage equality.

He continues to oppose any government recognition of same-sex relationships. Even civil unions are “not necessary,” Huckabee said.

They may not be necessary for him, but they are necessary as temporary assistance as we move towards marriage equality.

Huckabee went on to draw parallels between homosexuality and other lifestyles that are considered by some to be morally aberrant. “You don’t go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal,” he said of same-sex marriage. “That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them.”

The drug use comment is strange. But he does a standard anti-equality move in mentioning polygamy and consanguineous marriages along with (two-person) same-sex marriages.

He does almost get it right when he asks…

"Why do you get to choose that two men are OK but one man and three women aren't OK?" he asked.

They are ALL OK. None of them are anyone else's business.

Unfortunately, rather than standing up and completely repudiating this bigotry, as happens all too often, too many people refuse to support the right to love for all, letting their polyamorous and consanguineous neighbors be thrown under the bus. Even worse is when they turn on their neighbors and join in the bashing of those neighbors. This is like “black vs. brown”- when African Americans only care about rights for African Americans, and may even attack Latinos, or when Latinos behave the same way towards African Americans. Equality must be for all, otherwise it isn’t equality.

Here is an example. Someone identified as “Alex511” wrote after the Washington Post covered the story…

Huckabee is a nutball if he thinks that my marriage to my lovely WIFE in June 2008 (we're a gay Christian couple) is against "the idea of morality". He needs to yank the huge log out of his own tiny little eyeball before trying to remove a "speck" that he claims is in someone else's eye.

He also needs to remember that incest and polygamy are illegal, whereas being glbt is NOT.

But they aren't illegal everywhere, and they shouldn’t be illegal anywhere. GLBT used to be illegal, too, and polygamy and consanguineous marriages used to be accepted and respected in the law. They should be again. Everyone should have the right to marry the person or persons of their choosing.

We expect bigotry-laden double standards from the likes of Huckabee, even as we demand that such people leave their ignorance behind. What hurts is the lack of support from those who claim to support marriage equality.

The next time someone denigrates marriage or any kind of relationships between consenting adults - gay, lesbian, polyamorous, or consanguineous – we should all immediately and loudly respond with “Everyone should have the right to marry."

Alabama

There are many examples of how laws violate the right to love. I found a story here from last year from the Florence, Alabama area. I wasn’t able to find follow-up information.

An east Florence man and his stepdaughter have been charged with incest after their sexual encounters were reportedly videotaped and photographed, authorities said.

Did they abuse someone? No. As it turns out, she was 20 and he was 43 – they were consenting adults. But…

Incest is a felony in Alabama and can involve people who are not blood relatives. The law states that having sex with a stepchild or stepparent is considered incest.

So they were both arrested. For consensual, private sex. I’m all for protecting minor children from abuse, but that’s not what was going on here.

Authorities said the case against Trieber and Montanez surfaced as the department was investigating allegations of possible child pornography, which they were later told could be found at Trieber's house.

A search of the residence resulted in three computers and numerous DVDs, CDs, photos, videotapes and home videos being confiscated.

Police said that as investigators were reviewing the materials, they found images - on videos and photos - of Trieber and Montanez having sex on four different occasions.

At the time of the article, there was no information about child pornography charges, and I haven’t found any subsequent news, so that leads me to believe there was no such material. The investigation should have ended and the lovers should have been left alone.

It shouldn’t be illegal to do what these two lovers did. Nobody should be arrested and locked up for consensual relationships. Sadly, I’m not surprised, given that this is Alabama we are talking about.

Happy Sibling Couples

It isn’t hard to find widely publicized accounts of abuse by an older sibling against a significantly younger minor sibling. That, along with parents abusing their minor children is referred to as “incest,” and the impression given is that such abusive relationships are the totality of incest.

But there are consanguineous pairs who are truly consenting, and can lead happy lives together as adults. Due to prejudice and ignorance, we don’t hear about them often. As long as that is so, it will be harder to reach full marriage equality.

You can find some of these sibling couples on the GSA website. Back in August of 2004, someone by the name of “rollingrocker1972” wrote…

My sister and I were both single when we met. We have no children and our relationship with our family, while not strained, is somewhat distant. As a result no one was hurt or betrayed when we became involved. We've been together for several years now and intend to be together for the rest of our lives. We consider ourselves married. A legal marriage is of course impossible, but so what? As long as we keep the fact that we're half-siblings a secret it is highly unlikely that we will ever have any problems.

Although he was resigned at the time to legal marriage being “impossible,” it doesn’t have to be. We can make it happen. Why keep them from being happy? Slowly, we are making progress towards marriage equality. I look forward to the day when he and his sister won’t have to hide.

There is More Love

We’re adding the Loving More Polyamory Blog to our listings. According to the website,

Loving More® is a national not for profit corporation, educational website, online community and magazine dedicated to support and education of polyamory and polyamorous issues, supporting the polyamorous community both nationally and internationally for more than twenty two years.

Loving More Mission:

To educate people about and support polyamory as a valid choice in loving relationships and family lifestyle.

They say they believe:

Loving relationships and healthy families can come in many beautiful and valid forms. How people choose to experience relationships and love is an individual and personal choice. Through education about polyamory and other relationship or love styles, we hope to allow people the freedom to be open and honest about their personal love and relationship choices, without fear of the prejudice or hardships that being non-traditional can bring. Through education, publicity and research, we intend to open the door to freedom and safety for those who choose polyamory as individuals and as families.

That sounds like it fits right in with our fight for full marriage equality.

The polyamory aspect of my friends’ relationship seems to enhance the relationships between everyone. We know this because while Linda and Melissa were already experiencing a profound love as a consanguineous pair, beyond what they previously imagined possible, when Matthew found them, the addition of his love seemed more than what either woman had experienced with a man before, and it added to their love for each other.