Just so you know, more states support your right to inbreed and create flipper babies than your right to marry the person you love. Talk about family values.
FAMILY VALUES
Marrying Your Love? Gross! Marrying Your Cousin? Totally OK.
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Dave
I realize you’re being flippant, but it’s worth mentioning that the incidence of birth defects from first-cousin marriage is not statistically different from the incidence of birth defects from stranger marriages.
Why bother mentioning it? Because in a lot of ways, the bias against first-cousin marriage is surprisingly similar to the bias against same-sex marriage: lots of unsubstantiated claims and conjecture, but ultimately it really comes down to the “ick factor”.
Cam
@Dave:
There is a small difference.
Children of non-related couples have a 2-3% risk of birth defects, as opposed to first cousins having a 4-6% risk overall.
But if there is a familial birth defect, then the incidence goes up higher for that particular cousin couple.
Mike in Asheville
@Dave: @Cam:
It is not a singular instance of first cousins bearing children that is the major concern, rather generation after generation of first cousins generating offspring. Each generation of first cousin inbreeding greatly increases the risks of birth defects to that generation.
TMikel
I live in Virginia where first cousins can marry and I know of two such marriages. In both cases, the people waited until there were past child bearing age before tying the knot. Who knows where the heart may lead one?
Jeffree
@Cam: Kids born to first cousins also have about a 30% higher chance of *dying” before they reach their first birthday. Sad, true, & still happening.
Those malign genetic defects multiply rapidly in close-knit & isolated communities, whether they’re wealthy [think: European royalty ca: 17-800s, Russian czars, the Beckhams ] or poor [Mountain folks, frontier explorers, the Lohans & non-animated Simpsons].
tazz602
So totally explains things here in AZ – now I get it.
tazz602
@Dave @Cam – you never know what genetic disorders lie in yours or any family that are dormant until two of the same gene gets together – we have two of rare blood disorders in my family – and one of them would be really bad (opposite of hemophilia – blood clots too much) It’s russian roulette with kids basically.
divkid
@Jeffree:
oh jeffree, my funny, clever, sophisticated friend what will think of me?
in a jerry springer-like moment of candour i feel the urge to unburden MY shame…
my own mother, after divorcing my father, took up with her first cousin…our shame is somewhat mitigated as they grew up separately in different countries, meeting for the first time at twenty-something. their union resulted in no issue. (which is a shame, as a flipper baby would have enlivened bath-times no end).
sad to relate, however, that after a good ole run, it ended acrimoniously; largely due to my own ministrations, or so i’m informed/accused. but i say…RESULT!!!
next up…
my bachelor great-uncle rupert and the unwary scout troop.
Michelle
This was on Perez Hilton yesterday… not that it is any less interesting because of that, but it does highlight the decreasing quality of journalism here if someone else beat Queerty’s Daniel to the story.
christopher di spirito
Rudy “America’s Mayor” Giuliani is a cousin fucker.
The Republicans are so wacko that they are repulsed by gay and lesbian marriage but Giuliani marrying his cousin is perfectly fine with them.
Cam
@Jeffree:
Exactly, his stats were overall. But if there is any history of defects the children of cousins are in trouble.
divkid
@Michelle:
michelle, love, chill. you’re fixated. he’s not the enemy.
you remind me somewhat of a disgruntled burger flipper feeling cheated out of employee of the month and so taking every opportunity to spit in the fries.
let it go…OR go!. it’s undignified.
p.s .you do realise you just admitted to reading perez. like, out loud, publicly?!
the crustybastard
Moreover, EVERY state PLUS the federal government respects those consanguineous marriages if they were legal in the state where they were performed.
This is not the case with same-sex marriages.
If you marry your first cousin in Vermont then move to California, you remain married and remain entitled to all state and federal benefits and protections of marriage. If you marry your same-sex partner in Vermont then move to California, you revert back to legal strangers and lose those benefits and protections.
In fact pretty much ALL other marriages that would be invalid if performed in a particular jurisdiction are respected as valid by that jurisdiction EXCEPT same-sex marriages.
Despite being so unique in this respect, and such obvious targets of legislative discrimination, courts can’t even agree that we’re obvious targets of legislative discrimination.
Our president doesn’t regard this as any particular problem.
Chris
America is rather unique in this taboo. There is nothing “hill-billy” about it, as this post suggests.
The incidence of birth defect is about the same as for middle-aged mothers. There were recently articles by scientists saying that it is poor public policy.
This is like saying we can overcome racism by joining together to be Islamophobic. BS is BS.
Daniel in Missouri
There is an important point that has not been made yet. It is a reason that we need to keep pointing out to the folks in the middle to point out that the other side is being illogical, dishonest, or both. The political right has been proclaiming that procreation is a “compelling state interest”, however four of these state only allow cousins to marry if they prove they CANNOT procreate.
robert in NYC
I believe marrying one’s first cousin is legal in most states if you’re straight. In our state, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s first marriage was to his first cousin which ended in divorce while he went on to the second while still married to the first and again when he married the third and “last” wife. A serial adulterer, ditto Newt Gingrich. So much for the family values GOP and their one man one woman mantra to justify a ban on same-sex marriage. Procreation isn’t the primary pupose of marriage. If that were the case, women beyond child bearing years would have to be also banned and those who choose to or cannot procreate. Its nothing more than a canard to keep the ban in place.
robert in NYC
Personally, I don’t see how marrying one’s first blood cousin can be construed as not being incestuous. I believe there is one southern state maybe more, can’t remember which state(s) where its pefectly legal for a 16 year old boy to marry a 14 year old girl with parental consent. I wonder if states where it is illegal would be bound by federal or state law to recognize such a marriage? Hopefully not.
ousslander
to bounce slightly off subjuct. You put up that picture of the dentally challenge for ridicule but get bent over the femiman model being ridiculed. Hypocrisy?
ewe
@ousslander: That picture is so sad. I think they are also lost in a world of sniffing glue.
The Hu$tleman
Neither should be allowed, why would you want to marry a RELATIVE? That’s just as much of a sexual perversion as same sex marriage.
BOTH should be outlawed
robert in NYC
No. 19, if that’s the case, then why aren’t straights calling for an end to marrying first cousins if its a perversion, hardly a result of same-sex couples having a CIVIL marriage. Its been going on for centuries and condoned by religious cults. I never heard one word from the roman cult when Rudy Giuliani married his first cousin. Why isn’t Mrs. Srivastava’s NOM looking into deviant hetero sexual behavior such as this (she who had a child out of wedlock fame)? I would also submit that hetero adultery could be construed as a perversion of marriage, an millenia old hetero tradition and invention I might add. Why isn’t NOM et al supporting a ban on divorce and a ban on those heteros who want to marry but who can’t or choose not to procreate,as well as women beyond child-bearing years, something it and other right wing republican hate groups should wholeheartedly support but aren’t? They need to get their own disgustingly vile houses in order first and those who support their bigotry and hypocrisy.
Nat
@The Hu$tleman:
Wow, it was such a mistake skimming through your blog. I have to stop satisfying my curiosity in every situation.
The7thDoctor
I live in Chicago and I just KNEW Illinois was on the “Cousin Lovin'” list!