Incest & Group Marriages: The Next Big Thing

Ten years ago, it was the fight over gay marriage that got most of the attention in the culture wars. The idea of a man marrying another man, or a woman marrying another woman, was radical and extreme. It was unthinkable that there could be an issue related to marriage that was more divisive.

Then, in 2013 and again in 2015, the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage to be not only permissible, but a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution. The culture largely accepted the idea of same-sex couples. The public moved on. And liberal marriage advocates were left looking for other causes.

The twin issues of incestuous marriage and group marriage are on track to become the next great causes of the cultural progressive movement. They have not gained widespread attention up until now, because even in today’s culture the idea of a parent having relations with their own child, or a group of people becoming legally married to each other, is still seen as bizarre and disturbing.

But mark my words—these causes will soon become the “next great civil rights struggle”. Who are we to say that true love and commitment can only exist between two people? Who are we to say how mature adults live their lives, and want their love to be recognized by society? Who is society to judge whether mature blood relatives can feel romantic love toward one another.

These two cases (fair warning: don’t click the links unless you’re prepared to be disturbed), and others like them, are the beginning of the coming movement. It may not strike in earnest for a while. But, if history is any indicator, the time is coming.

Seriously. Why Do Gays Get So Much Press?

There are no firm numbers, but according to one estimate the number of people in the United States who identify as gay or lesbian is less than 10% of the total population.

According to other estimates, those who identify as transgender are even fewer—less than 1% of the population. Other elements of the LGBTQ+ alliance number even less.

Which is why it’s so interesting that issues of sexuality and “alternative gender”currently take up so much news coverage and public debate—for instance, questions surrounding the legalization of same-sex marriage, proper restroom etiquette for transgender individuals, public funding for sex-change operations, adding “nonbinary” as a third option on state documents requesting gender identification, and more. It seems like every week brings another similar, major story, covered by all the major news outlets—liberal, moderate, and conservative alike.

Many of these can be genuine stories, not meaningless fluff. And all of these people are human beings and deserve to have their voices heard. But it is still fascinating how such a small segment of the population, with little to unite the group beyond the fact that they are all “non-gender-conforming”, has such a hold over state and national conversations.

Some Tuesday Wisdom from the Next Supreme Court Justice

National Review Online has just unearthed a 2005 article written for the publication by a lawyer based in Washington, D.C., one Neil Gorsuch. Go and read the whole thing now.

Obviously, the brief portion of the piece where he touches on electoral politics hasn’t aged especially well. Lines such as “Democrats have already failed to win a majority of the popular vote in nine out of the last ten presidential elections,” are more interesting as historical relics than anything else. And, of course, the era of gay marriage being an automatic loser at the ballot box is over, even with the Supreme Court refusing Gorsuch’s invitation and ruling that all such marriages must be recognized by every state.

But all that is beside the point. The article beautifully illustrates the point, as salient now as it was ten years ago, that liberals rely on the courts and extensive litigation at their, and the country’s peril. Judges should defend rights and strike down laws when appropriate, to be sure. That’s part of the job description. But, again I stress, only when appropriate. Which should not be the open invitation that many on the Left seem to think it is.

And though Gorsuch addresses the Left specifically, conservatives would do well to heed his words. Too often, many on the Right see the great successes Democrats have had at enacting their agenda through the courts (such as a national right to gay marriage and abortion) and push too far in the other direction, calling for example, for the Supreme Court to declare abortion to be unconstitutional across the board. There are right and wrong ways of achieving goals, and this would undoubtedly be a very bad position for pro-lifers to support. If the Supreme Court merely overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the matter to the states and voters to decide, there could then be a much more substantial debate over the ethics of abortion. But to forbid it outright, by court order, would merely repeat the original mistake of Roe by removing abortion from the arena of meaningful public debate.

Liberals, conservatives, and the courts would do well to heed Gorsuch’s words. And Gorsuch himself would do well to remember them.

Policy Spotlight: Gay Marriage

The speed with which same-sex marriage has become an accepted part of mainstream American life is stunning. Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to recognize gay marriage, by order of the state Supreme Court, in 2004. Only eleven years later, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that gay marriage was protected under the Constitution, it had already been legalized in thirty-six states. A final victory for a movement which had only begun in earnest in the 1990’s, and in a few decades succeeded in overturning thousands of years of tradition on what constituted marriage.

And in the vast majority of those thirty-six states, as well as at the national level, it was a bare majority of judges, many of them federal judges unelected and unaccountable to the people, who made the ultimate decision to change the longstanding definition of one of the core institutions of human society. By doing so, these judges overturned dozens of laws and constitutional amendments approved by both the elected legislatures of the respective states, and the people through direct referendums.

Overturning these popularly approved laws and constitutional amendments was a direct strike at the idea of federalism central to the American experiment, and the ability of the states to serve as, in the words of Justice Louis Brandeis, “laboratories of democracy”. A central principle of federalism is to enable states to pass laws reflecting the values and policies best suited to their unique circumstances. Often, what’s best for Maine is not best for Georgia or Oregon—and if it is, states are free to learn from the experiences of others and implement similar laws tailored to meet their own unique needs. The same process was happening organically with the question of legalizing same-sex marriage, when federal judges—culminating with the Supreme Court and the Obergefell decision—stopped it cold and forced an identical solution on all fifty states.

Gay marriage was already winning the public debate—in 2012, four states approved referendum legalizing marriage between two people of the same gender, the first time the issue had actually won at the polls. If the majority in Obergefell had instead upheld the principle of federalism by allowing each state to continue making their own, democratic policies, it’s probable the majority of the country would have come to the same conclusion over time, with the added benefit of having people arrive at the decision freely, rather than being coerced into accepting a particular point of view.

All this is to say that both the conservative and tolerant policy with regard to gay marriage is continuing to allow each state to decide for itself whether or not to continue to recognize the practice. If Obergefell had been decided correctly this would be the current national policy, but as it is it will necessitate overturning that decision, whether by constitutional amendment or a later Court decision, both of which are obviously unlikely. But the end result should be promoted regardless, and the basic lessons of Obergefell can easily be applied to other, more current, debates, such as forcing individuals to perform and cater for same-sex weddings and bathroom use for transgendered people.

It’s also an easy policy to get behind and form compromises around, at least in theory. Supporters of gay marriage or abortion regulation or anything else will be comforted with the fact that no federal action will be taken to dissuade their favored policies in states which implement them, and vice versa with opponents of those policies, in states which ban same-sex marriage, or offer unregulated access to abortion.

In reality, the Left, which favors a top-down approach in which dissenting views are not to be tolerated, would not be content with such an arrangement for long. But this doesn’t change the fact that such an approach to issues like gay marriage or transgender bathroom use is the most tolerant option in respecting different viewpoints, and is also most in keeping with an original interpretation of the Constitution. Aggressively promoting this approach also has the added benefit of pushing back against the liberal narrative of intolerant and discriminatory conservatives, by pointing out the hypocrisy of a movement which itself is biased and discriminatory against any and all opposing opinions.

Above all, however, when long-established social norms such as the definition of marriage or appropriate bathroom use are challenged, it should always be the people and their elected representatives who make the final decision, not a few unelected oligarchs dictating what is best for the entire country.

What I Think is Happening with Gender Identity

Would that we could return to just a few years ago, when debate over LBGT issues centered entirely around acceptance of same-sex marriage. The debate was fierce, but easy to understand—should the legal definition of marriage remain as the union of one man and one woman, or be expanded to include two people of the same sex, either two men or two women?

We should have known it wouldn’t remain so simple for long.

The fight over same-sex marriage, which quickly morphed into a still-fierce debate over transgender rights and male/female gender identity, is even now shifting yet again, this time into a series of broader arguments over what truly constitutes gender. People are arguing that they are neither male nor female, but some combination of the two, or neither, and want to be referred to as “it”, “ze”, or “hir”. The movement for equal recognition of same-sex marriage—a movement I personally supported, albeit on a state, rather than federal, basis—has been hijacked into a growing movement calling for the recognition of group marriages, or of marriages between fathers and daughters, or between siblings. Similarly, the support network for those who are attempting to transition from male to female has been hijacked by radicals who believe they are dragons or other animals, fictional or otherwise. (I’m purposely not linking to any articles because many are so disturbing, but there are many easily accessible on Google for anyone curious enough to search for them.)

There’s an old experiment many people try growing up, where they purposely start thinking about an involuntary reflex like breathing, or walking. Most of us don’t think about having to breathe a certain number of times per minute, but the moment you begin thinking about it, you have to remind yourself to continue, and it becomes a conscious action. What was an unconscious reflex, taken for granted, rises to the realm of conscious thought.

The metaphor is strained, sure, but I think something similar is going on in society today with regard to gender identity. The concepts of male and female, something rooted in biology and largely unquestioned throughout history, is now being challenged. We as a society are thinking about things that until now have been relegated to the unconscious ticking of human social construct, but is now being challenged as never before. The ease of modern life, enabled by a standard of living that historically would have qualified some of the poorest among us as kings in the Middle Ages, coupled with a dominant liberal culture that still regards itself as a rebel counterculture, has given rise to a willingness to challenge ever more fundamental aspects of human existence.

And where will all this end up? It’s anyone’s guess, but it would be a mistake to think we’ve by any means reached the final end point, and there are only so many aspects of existence previously thought to be fundamental that can be challenged before society as a whole will itself begin to rebel. Until then, and for good or ill, group marriages and interspecies transitions may become as normalized in the public consciousness as same-sex marriage has been, compared to just a few years ago.