Lawful incest may be on its way

[VoxClamantis]

From the Boston Globe:
 

Lawful incest may be on its way
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | May 2, 2007
 

WHEN THE BBC invited me onto one of its talk shows recently to talk about the day's hot topic -- legalizing adult incest -- I thought of Rick Santorum.

Back in 2003, as the Supreme Court was preparing to rule in Lawrence v. Texas, a case challenging the constitutionality of laws criminalizing homosexual sodomy, then-Senator Santorum caught holy hell for warning out that if the law were struck down, there would be no avoiding the slippery slope.

"If the Supreme Court says you have the right to consensual sex within your home," he told a reporter, "then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

It was a common-sensical observation, though you wouldn't have known it from the nail-spitting it triggered in some quarters. When the justices, voting 6-3, did in fact declare it unconstitutional for any state to punish consensual gay sex, the dissenters echoed Santorum's point. "State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are . . . called into question by today's decision," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the minority. Now, Time magazine acknowledges: "It turns out the critics were right."

Time's attention, like the BBC's, has been caught by the legal battles underway to decriminalize incest between consenting adults. An article last month by Time reporter Michael Lindenberger titled "Should Incest Be Legal?" highlights the case of Paul Lowe, an Ohio man convicted of incest for having sex with his 22-year-old stepdaughter. Lowe has appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, making Lawrence the basis of his argument. In Lawrence, the court had ruled that people "are entitled to respect for their private lives" and that under the 14th Amendment, "the state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime." If that was true for the adult homosexual behavior in Lawrence, why not for the adult incestuous behavior in the Ohio case?

The BBC program focused on the case of Patrick and Susan Stubing, a German brother and sister who live as a couple and have had four children together. Incest is a criminal offense in Germany, and Patrick has already spent more than two years in prison for having sex with his sister. The two of them are asking Germany's highest court to abolish the law that makes incest illegal.

" We've done nothing wrong," Patrick told the BBC. "We are like normal lovers. We want to have a family." They dismiss the conventional argument that incest should be banned because the children of close relatives have a higher risk of genetic defects. After all, they point out, other couples with known genetic risks aren't punished for having sex. In any event, Patrick has had himself sterilized so that he cannot father any more children.

Some years back, I'd written about a similar case in Wisconsin -- that of Allen and Patricia Muth, a brother and sister who fell in love as adults, had several children together, and were prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned as a result. Following the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence, they appealed their conviction and lost in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Lowe will probably lose too.

But the next Lowe or Muth to come along, or the one after that, may not lose. In Lawrence, it is worth remembering, the Supreme Court didn't just invalidate all state laws making homosexual sodomy a crime. It also overruled its own decision just 17 years earlier (Bowers v. Hardwick, 1986) upholding such laws. If the court meant what it said in Lawrence -- that states are barred from "making . . . private sexual conduct a crime" -- it will not take that long for laws criminalizing incest to go by the board as well. Impossible? That's what they used to say about normalizing homosexuality and legalizing same-sex marriage.

In Germany, the Green Party is openly supporting the Stubings in their bid to decriminalize incest. According to the BBC, incest is no longer a criminal offense in Belgium, Holland, and France. Sweden already permits half-siblings to marry.

" Your reaction to the prospect of lawful incest may be "Ugh, gross." But personal repugnance is no replacement for moral standards. For more than 3,000 years, a code of conduct stretching back to Sinai has kept incest unconditionally beyond the pale. If sexual morality is jettisoned as a legitimate basis for legislation, personal opinion and cultural fashion are all that will remain. "Should Incest Be Legal?" Time asks. Expect more and more people to answer yes.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

[Traditionalist]

Wow.  When our country was founded (the US) homosexuality was a crime punishable by hanging.  I'm not saying we should hang homosexuals, but as the above article shows, if it is "normalized," it only makes sense to move in the same direction with other deviant sexual behaviours.  Why would they not?

We live in a truly Godless society today.

[aquinas138]

This is the obvious conclusion of what has been set in motion, yet the first thing liberals will do is dismiss any appeal to the slippery slope.  While it may be true that decriminalizing homosexuality does not infallibly mean that incest will be decriminalized, does anyone seriously doubt it?  If our current path of destroying the moral order continues unabated, I shudder to think what things will be like in 20 or 30 years.  Can anyone seriously maintain that bestiality and pedophilia will not one day be protected "lifestyle" choices?  We are already living in a world that seeks "human rights" for animals while simultaneously murdering millions of unborn children.  God have mercy!

[francis]

Hmm. What will arise? I've tended to agree with CS Lewis that criminalization of homosexual behviour "cures nothing, and merely creates a blackmailer's paradise." I also have an idea that incest in NZ is legal between consenting adults.

And yet, and yet...we've seen how quickly a society can move from tolerating homosexual behaviour (while still considering it immoral) to actually calling for gay marriage, and condemning as bigots those who still see the activity as intrinsically immoral.

NZ society still adheres in law to the rules on the last page of the Book of Common Prayer, the rules that fascinated me when I was younger "A man may not marry his: 1. Grandmother 2..." Yuk!! Who wants to? Well some do. How long before they get tired of (legal) cohabitation  and demand the right to marry? Then what arguments will we use? Genetic? Oh, we're not going to have kids. Leviticus?  Ha. Ha. You know Leviticus lets you capture slaves? The perennial teaching of Holy Mother Church?  Puleeze! We're a secular society, not Taliban.

One thing I learnt from the debate over gay marriage is that the things which everyone is instinctively and naturally against, become suprisingly hard to oppose once people cease to be instinctively and naturally against them. Once you can no longer appeal to the "yuk" factor, be it sodomy,porn or incest, we catholics are forced back to religous arguments- and they are ruled a priori out of court in secular society.

And yet the issue goes beyong the crimilization or legalization of an activity. In a society like Indonesia cohabitation might be legal, and yet have such strong social sanction against it, that it was less common than in the west. Even in western society activities such as fornication and cohabitation were for long periods legal, but had such strong social sanctions against them, that in practice the activities, while they occured, were restrained from becoming endemic or readily accepted.

[batteddy2]

Well, it just shows the slippery slope.

Though brother/sister isn't as bad as parent/child, grandparent/grandchild etc...

Though brother/sister is almost certainly now against Divine Law, and is a major taboo that should be maintained even just for practical reasons...I think theoretically it is not against the purely natural law strictly speaking.

Theologians in the past who interpretted the Bible literally thought it is against later positively enacted Divine Law, but not the natural law as (in the literal interpretation with no outside hominid lines breeding into the gene pool) Adam and Eve's children would have bred.

And it makes sense. Incest, strictly defined, is in the direct line of ascent and descent...not the lateral. The Church has issued dispensations right up to aunt-nephew (in certain royal houses especially). Brother/sister never, because it is almost certainly against a Divine Law now...but not against the natural strictly speaking, theoretically.

The reason that ancestor/descendent is unnatural is clear; how can you procreate with the thing that procreated you? There is a direct conflict of power there. Spouses and lovers are meant to be natural equals. But there is a natural inequality between parent/child (and thus indirectly grandparent/grandchild etc). How can you be equal with your inherent unequal? How could a son-husband be the head of the house if he had to also obey his mother-wife? So the contradictions of nature are clear there. Step-children too. How can you be an equal with your mother's husband, when you are supposed to be unequal with her who deservers your obedience...and yet she and he were also supposed to be equals? It's like having a master/slave marriage where the master doesnt free the slave first. It's all so unnatural and imbalanced.

But merely having shared the same womb at different (or even the same) time is less clear as to why it would be unnatural. Especially early on in the species for biblical literalists.

Therefore, I believe (and theologians also concluded) brother/sister is against a Divine Law, but not strictly speaking natural law.

Catholic Encyclopedia says:

By the law of nature, it is universally conceded, marriage is prohibited between parent and child, for the reverential relation between them is recognized as incompatible with the equality of relations engendered by the bond of marriage. The universal sentiment of peoples is likewise opposed to marriage between all persons related in any degree in the direct line, thus between grandparent and grandchild.

 

Because of the acknowledged derivation of the human race from the common progenitors, Adam and Eve, it is difficult to accept the opinion of some theologians that the marriage of brother and sister is against the law of nature; otherwise the propagation of the human race would have begun by violation of the natural law. It is readily understood that, considering the freedom of intercourse between such persons, some effort would soon be made (in the interest of the social welfare) to prevent early corruption within the close family circle by placing a bar to the hope of marriage. Hence among all peoples there has arisen a natural repugnance to the marriage of brother and sister. Some theologians suppose herein a positive Divine law.

[francis]

The reason that ancestor/descendent is unnatural is clear; how can you procreate with the thing that procreated you? There is a direct conflict of power there. Spouses and lovers are meant to be natural equals. But there is a natural inequality between parent/child (and thus indirectly grandparent/grandchild etc). How can you be equal with your unequal. How could a son-husband be the head of the house if he had to also obey his mother-wife? So the contradictions of nature are clear there.

Is that our only line of defense? It's easily demolished by our adversaries. "Who says a grown man must obey his mother, or a modern wife her husband.?" Is there nothing else? Admittedly when you remove "Yuk!" and "Because God says so" and "Because it's taboo" as your perennial defenses, there's not much left anyway. But the above is definitely a last-ditch defense, and one that's going to be easily over-run. The fact that we have to resort to it at all, is in itself an ominous sign.

[batteddy2]

The above is the natural law. The other arguments are from emotion and faith. If you want to argue purely from reason and nature, the above is what we have.

Children are naturally unequal with their parents, there is naturally a conflict there, you cannot father with your mother, that creates all sorts of contradictory relationships.

[francis]

The above is the natural law. The other arguments are from emotion and faith. If you want to argue purely from reason and nature, the above is what we have.

Children are naturally unequal with their parents, there is naturally a conflict there, you cannot father with your mother, that creates all sorts of contradictory relationships.

I see your point. I suppose the trouble is that when a secular society rejects the notion of divine law, as the edifice of divine law is demolished,  it drags down the edifice of natural law with it. So we argue that opposition to abortion is not just a "catholic thing" but part of natural law. But it's no use. Both concepts have collapsed together. Still, it's a truism among catholics that if you reject the supernatural to adhere to the natural, you end up with the unnatural. And if you reject faith to follow reason alone, you end up with the irrational.

[Cupertino]

Boston Globe article: WHEN THE BBC invited me onto one of its talk shows recently to talk about the day's hot topic -- legalizing adult incest -- I thought of Rick Santorum.

A bit off the mark from the current discussion, but two points.

1. I miss Rick Santorum.  A politician who makes such thoughtful, well reasoned remarks as pointing out the slippery slope here is rare. 
2. The fact that this article appeared in the Boston Globe must be a minor miracle.  I haven't read the Globe for some time, but last I checked it was the most liberal, anti-Catholic paper around.  For the Globe to have an article that even suggests a possible flaw with the Supreme Court's absurd exaltation of "private conduct" above the law of Almighty God is both refreshing and surprising.

[Marylou]

We must strive to keep the "Yuk" well and truly alive in our society.

Our state government voted in cloning tonight - yuk, yuk, yuk.


All these sophisticated moronic politicians think they are clever allowing some nutty scientists do what ever they please.

All this depravity is 'yuk' that is why the Church condemns it so strongly.
We will not give depravity respectability.  

We will not ever give up hope and give them their victory - slavery was eventually abolished.