Rick Warren and incest
Here's one of the infamous interviews:
To be clear, I am for full equality for all consenting adults, regardless of orientation.
But here's the thing. Can anyone tell me why, if it should be legal for two consenting homosexuals to get married, it should be illegal for two consenting relatives to get married?
I am not equating homosexuality with any sort of perceived sin or evil associated with incest. But the question is, if you're truly in favor of equal rights for gay people, could you be intellectually and morally consistent by opposing consentual, adult, incestuous relationships?
Any reasons I can think of to oppose that sort of consentual incestual relationship could also be used to oppose gay relationships.
So with that said, I suppose that if I'm for gay marriage, I'm also for pretty much every other type of conceivable consentual marriage.
How could you distinguish?
I think that's the point that Rick Warren was trying to make. For him, he doesn't want to make that change. For me, I guess I'm okay with it.
Thoughts?
posted by Jeff @ 12/23/2008 12:08:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I understand the slippery slope argument. Off the bat, though, incest has been known to lead to terrible health effects in the offspring of those couples, because of the greatly increased chance of recessive genes. I think incest itself is illegal in most if not all states (unlike homosexuality) for this very reason.
Frankly, I think government-sanctioned marriage should be eliminated altogether. Everyone seeking to make a lifetime commitment to a partner should be civilly united, whether gay or straight or man to beast (OK, maybe not man to beast). Marriage then can remain wholly within the purview of the church, i.e., Eva and I would be civilly united in California and married by the Universal Life Church!
Thanks for your comment, Ranthor.
I completely agree with you about eliminating the concept of government sanctioned marriage in favor of civil partnerships or some other similar thing, and leaving the organizations that have an interest in the "moral" side of things to adjudicate those issues as they see fit.
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