Rights Aren’t Reserved For the Majority

When it comes to the notion that incest laws criminalizing adult consanguinamory and banning consanguineous marriage should be overturned, one common dismissal by antiequality forces is based the claim that there aren’t many people who want to do these things.

But rights are not determined by number of people. If there were only two immigrants in the US from Luxembourg, one man and one woman, would it be okay to deny them marriage, due process, housing, employment, or anything else simply because there were only two of them? Would racial segregation be okay if there were only 1,000 people in the country of a racial minority? Of course not. If the couple from Luxembourg wrote a book that only a few people wanted to read, would it be acceptable for the US government to ban the book? Of course not. Freedom of speech is not determined by whether or not you make the bestseller list. The freedom to marry should be no different.

An adult has the right to marry the persons he or she loves, and groups of people should not be excluded from that right based on their minority status.

There are consanguineous lovers who have been featured in major news media, who have to hide their love or have dealt with severe persecution and prosecution under incest laws (just click my labels below to see some examples). This has no doubt discouraged other people in such relationships from coming out. We have good reason to believe that there are many more people hiding in the shadows. There is a large amount of interest shown in straightforward accounts of such relationships, and in erotic or pornographic depictions of such relationships, whether fiction or presented as nonfiction.

Some counselors and law enforcement personnel will say they’ve never directly encountered a positive example of such a relationship, but their professions deal with people who are troubled, unhappy, or upset. Who is going to call up a police station or a prosecutor and say, “I just wanted you to know, I couldn’t be happier with my relationship with my sister. We really love each other and the sex is great?” In reality, those professionals, like everyone else, have had contact with someone who is in such a relationship, or has been in one, or wants to be in one. They just don’t know it, because most people don’t volunteer such information, and may actively hide it. On the average college campus, if there are ten students in once place, chances are that at least two of them have already experimented with a sibling close in age. They should not be made to feel lesser. Youthful experimentation is not the same thing as a spousal relationship, but if a spousal relationship does evolve, why should they be denied marriage rights?

It wasn’t that long ago (1989) that Rhode Island decriminalized consanguineous sex. That was during the conservative Reagan-Bush years. There is no reason why other states or national governments shouldn’t or couldn’t do likewise, especially now.

There is no basis for excluding consanguinamorous people from the rights of consenting adults to love, sex, and marriage, and wasteful laws that do so should be repealed in the name of freedom and equality.