[Bumping this up because it is still revelant.] I take the idea of consenting adults seriously. An adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion should be free to share love,
sex, kink, residence, and
marriage (or any other legal union offered) with any and all consenting adults.
This does not mean I think any given person is a good match for any other person, or that they are treating each other right. It just means whether or not they have a relationship and what they do together should be
up to them, not anyone else.
Our laws are inconsistent about this. A 22-year-old woman living below the poverty level can legally consent to sign a prenuptial agreement and legally marry a 60-year-old male billionaire. She can have sex with the President of the United States, who obviously has much more power than her. The law in many places allows her to marry a complete stranger. Also, in most places, she can legally live with and consent to sex with a man who has what amounts to a harem, or she can consent to group sex with several weightlifting champions she’s never met before, or an older man who’s been her next-door neighbor since she was born and babysat her throughout her childhood, and is now living on death row as a convicted murderer.
That’s all legal. However, in many places she’s still barred from legally marrying another 22-year-old woman, and in even more places, she is still barred from having consensual sex with, let alone marrying a full or half sibling,
even if they weren’t raised together. I have yet to hear
a reason justifying such discrimination that withstands scrutiny.
Recently some
tweets were directed to me by a thoughtful person questioning brother-sister marriage, and those tweets deserve responses longer than 140 characters, so I’m putting my response here.