Bill to make marrying your first cousin illegal in Tennessee passes but not without a fight

Wilshire@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 451 points –
Bill to make marrying your first cousin illegal in Tennessee passes but not without a fight
wsmv.com
144

You are viewing a single comment

I know everyone is like "haha cousin fuckers."

But really, do we want the government to pass laws restricting who we can and cannot marry?

I can't help but notice the overlap with LGBT rights. I'm pretty sure I'd prefer them to not pass this law.

Like, from a legal and philosophical perspective, why is it OK for the government to restrict this? Why wouldn't that same argument apply to gay men getting married?

Can you elaborate a little? Like do you mean that if LGBTQ is accepted, first cousins are meant to be accepted as well?

This isn't about "acceptance" in the social sense. I'm not saying you have to accept cousin fuckers in your community.

I'm more worried about the legal framework. If it is legal to outlaw this, why is it illegal to outlaw gay marriage? Like, that doesn't seem ideologically consistent.

Well, we also can't let communities discriminate like that...you say you're "not saying you have to accept [them] in your community regardless of legal status" but I'm assuming you don't feel loke people should be able to chase other types of minorities out of town if they don't approve. That's kinda the whole point of law - to set the rules for how we treat each other. I haven't thought enough about this particular topic to know how I feel about it. I see the state's interest in reducing incestuous births, and I'm definitely not ok with the state making reproductive choices for people more generally.

What's really disgusting is that I bet the entire reason they're even debating this is because they don't want to allow any exemption from their abortion ban.

I'm intentionally trying to separate the social discrimination problem from the legal problem, and to not make a comment about the former.

I guess I get that the state has an interest in preventing incestuous birth, but marriage is orthogonal sex.

marriage is orthogonal sex>

Rationally speaking, yes. The religious right seem to feel differently.

I've noticed people on both sides are cool with laws that hurt others.

Ex: We see plenty of pot smokers supporting banning nicotine products.

Liberals aren't immune to this just like conservatives. Most people are shit :(

nah dude. one thing hurts you and has severe impacts on your health. Inbreeding and lung cancer don't have "both sides" of an argument. they're bad.