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> Why not allow 12 year olds to marry as a consititutional right? Children are not considered capable of consent. > Why not allow brothers and sisters to marr
by chockablock 11y ago
> Why not allow 12 year olds to marry as a consititutional right?
Children are not considered capable of consent.
> Why not allow brothers and sisters to marry?
Claimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding.
> I'm not trying to make a slippery slope argument. I'm really asking.
OK, well now you have a couple answers.
- worklogin 11y ago>OK, well now you have a couple answers. You're rude with your snark.
- aaardvark 11y agoDon't start with the tone-policing, OP has addressed all the above questions in a reasonable manner.
- worklogin 11y agoBe civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." --- They didn't have to include the postscript. It came off poorly. I'm not posting this to social media trying to get OP fired, but I will call out when people include contentless swipes at other peoples' legitimate posts.
- chockablock 11y agoI agree that the (now-flagged) post calling me out on my snark was fair, I would not have used that tone in real life.
- eropple 11y agoHe was replying to someone attempting to equate pedophilia and incest with homosexuality. Outright rudeness, not mere snark, is deserved.
- DanBC 11y ago12 years olds marrying each other is not paedophilia.
- dpark 11y agoHe didn't say anything about 12-year-olds marrying each other. You're assuming that's what he meant. He could have meant that, or he could have meant 12-year-olds marrying 40-year-olds.
- eropple 11y agoExactly this, and I'm disinclined to assume too much good faith in the sort of rhetoric he deployed.
- LordKano 11y agoClaimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding. Does this mean that marriages between same-sex siblings will be permitted? It's simply the fact that we find the idea of siblings having sex to be icky. Which is the same reason for the prohibition against same-sex marriage.
- tzs 11y ago> There's no evidence that sibling marriage results in defective offspring. It's simply the fact that we find the idea of siblings having sex to be icky Bullshit [1]. [1] http://www.larasig.com/node/2020 http://www.larasig.com/node/2020
- bdowling 11y agoDid you read Your citation? Because it doesn't back up your assertion. It's says that for for first degree relations (brother-sister or parent child) the risk of death or severe defect increases 31.4% over the general risk. It doesn't say what the general risk is, but I assume it is relatively rare, on the order of 1 in 1000 or fewer. So risk to offspring from siblings would rise to about 1.3 in 1000. I would hardly call that proof that sibling marriage results in defective offspring.
- DanBC 11y agoWhere "no evidence" means "lots of evidence". http://www.genetics.edu.au/Publications-and-Resources/Genetics-Fact-Sheets/FactSheet16 http://www.genetics.edu.au/Publications-and-Resources/Geneti... Etc.
- dorgo 11y ago>> Why not allow brothers and sisters to marry? >Claimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding. They can produce offspring without a marriage. Or, if it would be allowed, they could marry and dont produce offspring. Dont see how one is connected to the other. Its not a question of reasoning. All you need is a lobby big enough and enough time and you are allowed to do whatever you like to do. Marry a 12 year old, marry a pet, marry a car..
- slavik81 11y ago>> Why not allow brothers and sisters to marry? > Claimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding. If that's all, it seems that logically, brother-brother marriage should be OK. I suspect the real reason for a lot of these laws are is "because it's icky". The justifications seem more like rationalisations.
- murbard2 11y agoYes, but "it's icky" didn't form arbitrarily, ex nihilo. If you go one level deeper and ask why it's considered icky, you may find justifications, some good, some bad, some outmoded, some relevant.
- hluska 11y agoI should preface this by saying that Christmas dinner at the Hluska household is already complex enough...:) On a serious note though, you allude to one of my favourite aspects of law. Throughout history, views on brother-sister marriage have changed. At points/places, it has been perfectly fine for brothers and sisters (especially in elite families) to get married. I am far from an expert in this field so can't speak to why our norms changed. If you want to take this further, you should start with the Westermarck effect and look into the kibbutz study. Or, maybe consider how marriages between families evolved as a way of formalizing business or other strategic relationships. Either way, taboos are cool!! For example, in ancient Greece, homosexuality was fine. Hell, even Zeus advocated it as a way to prevent pregnancy. Yet, by the early 1900s, it was considered mental illness through much of the world. Taboos are always in flux and I can't figure out why. Logically, you'd think that science and information sharing would make us all more liberal and taboo-proof, but I'm not sure that is happening. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect
- fizzbatter 11y ago> Logically, you'd think that science and information sharing would make us all more liberal and taboo-proof, but I'm not sure that is happening. I think you're right - but i also think you're underestimating the lack of science minded individuals in the ones who are less liberal (such as in the US). Education is becoming a big problem, in general.
- ikeboy 11y ago>Claimed societal interest in preventing harm to offspring born from inbreeding. If that's a valid argument, why isn't the same argument [1] against gays valid? Conversely, if greater risk isn't enough of a constitutional reason to allow bans on gay marriage, why is it enough to make incest bans constitutional? [1] http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/gender/msm/facts/ http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/gender/msm/facts/
- foldr 11y agoHow would legalizing gay marriage increase the risk of anyone getting HIV? You're not making any sense.
- ikeboy 11y agoThe same way that legalizing brother-sister marriage increases risk. Or could you explain more fully why one would increase risk but not the other?
- foldr 11y agoYou think that gay men are more likely to have unprotected sex with multiple partners if they get married than if they don't?
- ikeboy 11y agoThey might; something being officially sanctioned might increase the frequency. Can you at least see a reasonable comparison between the two? If you don't think changing marriage laws affects behavior, shouldn't that apply to incest as well? It seems to me that "legalizing gay marriage won't increase gay sex overall" and "legalizing sibling marriage won't increase sibling sex overall" are likely to be inconsistent with each other, and that the first is implied by your wording; if gay sex increases, it should also increase "unprotected sex with multiple partners".
- foldr 11y ago
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoThe 'inbreeding' argument doesn't, and has never, held water. Not that I'm about to jump my sister; but as a point of science its not terribly significant. Cousins can actually have closer DNA than siblings; cousins are often allowed to marry (varies state by state). The idea that only horrible monsters will result is silly; its how all purebred farm animals are created.
- cyorir 11y agoThe main argument against incest that I know of pertains to recessive genetic diseases. Suppose one parent has a recessive disease, and the other does not (P generation). Then F1 generation may have carriers, but will not display the disease. If F1 mate together, however, then the F2 generation may contain individuals who are homozygous for the recessive allele, so they will display the disease. There was a case in which this happened, the "Blue Fugates" [0], who had a particular recessive disease[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Fugates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Fugates [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methemoglobinemia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methemoglobinemia This argument made sense before genetic screening was available, but falls apart with genetic screening, since you could screen the siblings to see if they are both carriers.
- DanBC 11y agoThe other argument against incest is to protect vulnerable people from abusive adults. There are enough cases to realise this is something of a problem, although protections can probably be built into the system.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoAnd other forms of marriage are not subject to abuse? Doesn't rise to the level of prohibition, I think.
- driverdan 11y ago[citation needed]
- jrs235 11y ago>Children are not considered capable of consent. Children (minors and the "age of majority") and age of consent is defined by law. While we have come mostly to an agreement on the age of consent for many things, nothing prevents us from changing our definitions or age of consent for varying activities.
- spdustin 11y agoThe age at which the brain is capable of the higher levels of executive function necessary to make rational, informed decisions (not saying that such decisions are guaranteed, just that the brain is capable of considering them) is a function of biology, i.e. defined by natural law. The legal framework of consenting age protects the abuse of a minor's inability to "think like a grown up", though it's arguable if the age of consent is too low (because biology dictates an older brain has a matured executive function capacity) or too high (because some kids, as many can attest, are wise beyond their years).
- jrs235 11y ago>The legal framework of consenting age Should be "Current western and developed/modern civilization's legal framework of consenting age"...