by Jason Stotts
Blogger Andrew Sullivan, of “The Daily Dish” at The Atlantic, has a very interesting graphic that shows just how crazy the laws regarding marriage in our country really are.
The reason that we have laws against siblings marrying is that the chance that the offspring will be severely mentally retarded is much greater, this is also the source of the taboo against incest. The reason that many states also ban marriage between first cousins is that the genetic lines are still very close and retardation is still likely (this is very contested and some studies indicate it’s not more than 10% more likely). For this reason, I can understand why some states would ban marriage between first cousins. I’m not making any arguments here about whether they should, merely I can understand why they would if they believed that it would promote mental retardation.
However, it is shocking to compare the states that allow marriage between first cousins and those states that allow gay marriage and note how truly sparse the states that allow gay marriage really are! Are the other states worried that children born to gay couples will be retarded? Last time I checked there are no children born to gay couples. It’s just not possible. Frankly, if gay marriage is offensive to the “institution of marriage” (whatever that means), then a higher likelihood of retarded children should be as well. But apparently more states would rather have a retarded population than to have gays marrying.
There is really no other explanation for the prohibition of gay marriage than the widespread hatred of homosexuality born from the religious insistence that homosexuality is against their god’s design. This, of course, leads to the culturally ubiquitous belief that homosexuality is, therefore, “unnatural.” However, such arguments are silly as: 1. there are no gods, 2. there are numerous cases of homosexuality in nature, and 3. there are many things that humans can do that can be considered “unnatural” by some (bad) definitions, but this does not make these things immoral.
Personally, I wish people would stop trying to control the lives of others in all aspects of life; from politics, to economics, and especially to sexual issues.