Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Oklahoma Still Denying the Right to Marry

Yet again we see that not only are Americans still being denied their right to marry, but they're being denied their right to be together at all. Today's example comes from a report by Scott Rains at swoknews.com...

A biological mother and daughter are wanted for felony counts of incest after investigators say they married each other earlier this year.
Who exactly did it harm that they got married? And yet they are accused felons?
According to investigators, this is the second marriage for the mother to one of her children. 
Again, who are they hurting?
Felony arrest warrants were issued in Stephens County District Court charging Patricia Ann Spann, 43, and Misty Velvet Dawn Spann, 25, each with a count of incest, court records indicate. Each woman faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. 
Ten years in prison. For marrying. The Stephens County District Court is wasting public resources. This is infuriating. Friends of ours have been investigated, had children taken away, been charged with crimes for simply being adults in love with each other. We feel for these strangers.
The charge stems from the March 25 nuptials between the two women. In an affidavit filed in court, Duncan police Detective Dustin Smith stated that he began investigation Aug. 26 after an Oklahoma Department of Human Services Child Welfare Division investigator uncovered the information during the course of an investigation regarding children in the Spanns' Duncan house. 
Anyone can anonymously contact authorities and claim children are being neglected and abused. If an investigation reveals otherwise, great. If children are being abused or neglected, charge people with those crimes. Don't charge adults with crimes for exercising their fundamental rights. Since this news report doesn't include any allegations of child abuse or neglect, I'm assuming authorities didn't find children were being abused.
Patricia Spann indicated she is the biological mother of Misty Spann and two other males  all the product from a first marriage and that she'd lost custody of the children to their father's mother.
This sounds very familiar. The difference is that this woman apparently didn't realize there are still unconstitutional, bigoted discriminatory laws in place. Lovers still need to protect themselves.
Patricia Spann told the investigator that she didn't have contact with her biological children until about two years ago. When she reunited with Misty Spann, she found "they hit it off." 
This sounds like Genetic Sexual Attraction.
The two were married March 25 in Comanche County. She told the investigator she'd "looked into it" and, because her name was no longer listed on the birth certificate, she felt no law had been violated, according to the affidavit. 
Although it was possible to get a marriage license, unfortunately, the laws most states still have are problematic. One of the cruel things is that they probably wouldn't be treated as family if one of them ended up in the hospital.
Both women are aware of the biological relationship and have considered requesting an annulment. At no time during the questioning did Patricia Spann indicate she'd been married to her eldest son, Smith wrote.
Again, who was harmed by this? Let them all marry if they want. That's the way it'll been sooner or later. Get on the right side of history and stop wasting public resources attacking adults for loving each other.
If there is more to the story behind the paywall, I don't have access to it.
I see no good reason to deny these people their rights, throw them in jail, and break up their home.

No comments:

Post a Comment

To prevent spam, comments will have to be approved, so your comment may not appear for several hours. Feedback is welcome, including disagreement. I only delete/reject/mark as spam: spam, vulgar or hateful attacks, repeated spouting of bigotry from the same person that does not add to the discussion, and the like. I will not reject comments based on disagreement, but if you don't think consenting adults should be free to love each other, then I do not consent to have you repeatedly spout hate on my blog without adding anything to the discourse.

If you want to write to me privately, then either contact me on Facebook, email me at fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com, or tell me in your comment that you do NOT want it published. Otherwise, anything you write here is fair game to be used in a subsequent entry. If you want to be anonymous, that is fine.

IT IS OK TO TALK ABOUT SEX IN YOUR COMMENTS, BUT PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY AS I WANT THIS BLOG TO BE AS "SAFE FOR WORK" AS POSSIBLE. If your comment includes graphic descriptions of activity involving minors, it's not going to get published.