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'Legalize Incest' Suggestion Shocks Lawmakers

By Patrick Goodenough
Pacific Rim Bureau Chief
Crosswalk
Friday, May 21, 2004

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - A respected academic
in New Zealand has recommended that incest between
consenting adults be legalized, playing down any concerns
about the genetic abnormalities resulting from
inbreeding.

Professor Peter Munz, professor emeritus of history at
Wellington's Victoria University, stunned lawmakers who
are considering amendments to criminal law by proposing
that it was no longer necessary to outlaw sex between
close relations.

He argued that, historically, incest was illegal because
it was considered a waste of an asset to have women marry
close to home. Women played an important role when one
tribe wanted to create an alliance with another, he said.


"It was indeed a crime to waste good, nubile women on
local people who were allies already, instead of using
them to bring in new allies, new friends, new trade


In modern society, however, women were no longer required
for marriage alliances, he argued. The incest prohibition
had "lingered on needlessly" but was clearly no longer
required.

Munz, a scholar whose books have been published
internationally, also asserted that the likelihood that
any children resulting from incestuous intercourse would
suffer genetic defects was not a sufficiently good reason
for making incest illegal.

Any such damage would be sporadic, and in any case, "be
eliminated after several generations."

Sexual attraction between members of a family who had
grown up together was minimal, he said.

"Today, if siblings - against all odds - should fall in
love with each other, they should be welcome to it."

After reading Munz' written submission, members of the
parliament's Law and Order Committee had the opportunity
to question the professor.

But according to committee vice-chairman, Marc Alexander,
lawmakers were so shocked they chose not to discuss the
matter further with him.

"We were absolutely stunned when the read the submission,
and couldn't believe that anybody could possibly
entertain the idea of decriminalizing incest," Alexander
said Friday. "It was just unbelievable."

"None of us was willing to give him five minutes. We just
didn't want to dignify his comments at all."

Alexander said he did not believe Munz' interest was
merely "a single person's quest for some sort of bizarre
truth. I presume that he has loyal followers who
basically want to push this."

Although Munz only argued for legalizing incest between
consenting adults, Alexander said his personal view was
that the proposal was merely a "forerunner" of
pedophilia. "I can see a potential link between the two."

"Once you loosen the bonds of incest, where do you go
from there?"

Also critical of Munz' suggestions was New Zealand's
Maxim Institute, a conservative think tank.

"In a culture that has exalted consent as the ultimate
sexual ethic, why would we be surprised?" a
representative asked.

"What will be next: the claim that consensual incest is a
human right and to oppose it is 'familial'
discrimination?"

'Genetic improvement'

In a phone interview Friday, Munz said he was surprised
that lawmakers had not bothered to discuss the submission
with him.

"I was struck by the lack of knowledge or interest. It's
really a sobering thought to think that our laws are in
the hands of people who are so ... disinterested and
ignorant."

The single question he had been asked before the
committee put aside his submission was: "Have you
discussed this with women?" - which he took to be a
tetchy response to his suggestion that women had been
"used" historically to secure alliances with other
tribes.

Asked to elaborate on his point regarding inbreeding,
Munz said that according to genetics theory, "if you
practice incest consistently over a period, receptive
genes are likely to come up, which of course would be
very bad."

"But it has also been found that if you continue to
practice incest systematically, the recessive genes will
automatically be weeded out, and only the dominant ones
will come up."

In such a case, he said, "that would probably be an
improvement in the genetic quality of mankind."

Munz conceded that this was a purely theoretical
argument: No-one was going to practice incest for
generations to prove the point.

Duress

Incest is banned around the world, although countries
vary in their interpretation, with some allowing sexual
relations between first cousins, for example.

In Australia in 1996, a discussion paper drawn up by a
law reform committee proposed lifting the ban on incest
between consenting adults.

Following a public outcry, the idea was dropped, although
the committee members attributed the row to
misunderstandings that its proposal would have legalized
sexual relations between parents and minor children.

Professor Sheila Jeffreys of the University of Melbourne
in Australia said Friday that once incest between adults
is decriminalized, the issue of whether one person is
being pressured or coerced becomes hazy.

"The problem is being able to recognize the duress. If
you decriminalize it, it may be hard to recognize the
duress, which is almost certainly from the older, and
usually male, partner."

In Britain early last century, authorities would arrest
both partners suspected to be in an incestuous
relationship, Jeffreys said.

"There was no recognition of a power relationship going
on, and of course there is almost inevitably a power
relationship [involved]."

This week's incident in Wellington comes at a time
conservative opponents of same-sex "marriage" are arguing
that legalizing it will lead to the end of other sexual
taboos, such as incest and bestiality.

Last year, Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) was at the
center of a storm after being accused of linking
homosexual sexual relations with other sexual activities
that are generally frowned upon.

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to
consensual [homosexual] sex within your home, then you
have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy,
you have the right to incest, you have the right to
adultery. You have the right to anything," he was quoted
as telling an Associated Press reporter.

Santorum was commenting on a legal challenge to Texas'
sodomy law, then underway.

After he was criticized by homosexual activists and some
politicians, the senator said his remarks did not
constitute a statement on "individual lifestyles," but
had related to "the right of privacy and the broader
implications of a ruling on other state privacy laws."

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1264088.html

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:18:01 PM by missyme

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-To: missyme

Perfectly consistent with Justice Kennedys majority
ruling in Lawrence v Texas. Polygamy, polyamory, incest,
marriage of convenience? No way?

LOL.

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:21:12 PM by jwalsh07

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-To: missyme

SANTORUM WAS/IS RIGHT

-- summing up how well Santorum fortold the future with
a bumpersticker slogan

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:22:12 PM by VOA

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-To: jwalsh07

Right to privacy. Right to do what you want with your own
body. Why not?

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:22:34 PM by gitmo

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-To: missyme

Up next on today's Oprah: Bestiality, and what breeds are
the best to mate with...

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:22:53 PM by Extremely Extreme
Extremist

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-To: gitmo

Right to murder your baby on the way out? Why not indeed.

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:24:44 PM by jwalsh07

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-To: missyme

Anybody remember the "Flowers in the Attic" series?

(ick)

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:25:28 PM by cyncooper

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-To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

You laugh now. But the truth is that legally after
Lawrence vs. Texas Pandora's box is now open.

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:26:46 PM by expatguy

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-To: missyme

Oh, PERFECT. That didn't take long, did it?

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:28:22 PM by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet

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-To: missyme

"Wa'll shucks...hepn's alla tyme up he'ya."

"My muthr wuz tellin' me just 'tuther day hows her and
Unc'le Enius had a "special" party ..just them two, after
ev'ry body went on home on her 12th birthday."

"I allay's a wundered how a'come brother Elmer looks alot
like Unc'le Enius."

"Sissie-Mae's 12th a'comin next week and boy have I got a
present for her!"

Does this MORON (the "Professer" mentioned in the
article) even have a branch in his own family tree? There
are VERY good reasons for preventing insest. Both genetic
and Biblical.

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:38:21 PM by cavtrooper21

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-To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet

Oh NO, after Massachusettes we have anything goes when it
comes to sexual relationships, I have heard Man with
animals, sodomizing horses, marrying more than 1 person
and now marry your family members, I am sure pedophiles
will want in on the action next....

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:39:39 PM by missyme

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-To: expatguy

You are correct, my friend. It seems to me that the MA
state constitution does not SPECIFICALLY prohibit incest.
That is how those MA supreme court judges foisted gay
marriage on that state. I can see incest as the next
taboo to fall in MA.

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:40:05 PM by Conservative Infidel

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-To: missyme

And they said this wasn't possible.

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:41:20 PM by BriarBey

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-To: Conservative Infidel

You can also expect polygamy as well.

Following the same doctrine, why is marriage limited to
two individuals?

Group marriage? Polygamy? Polygyny?

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:51:30 PM by expatguy

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-To: missyme

Humor break:

Oedipus: [walking around blind, collecting donations]
Give to Oedipus! Give to Oedipus! [Becomes aware of
Josephus and greets him]

Oedipus: Hey, Josephus!

Josephus: Hey, m*****f*****!

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:53:02 PM by pogo101

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-To: jwalsh07


So, can we marry our brothers and our sisters at the same
time.........as long as we are all consenting adults?

Posted on 5/21/2004 4:54:48 PM by Polybius

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-To: cavtrooper21

Good biblical reasons. It's not as clean cut on genetic
grounds.

What incest will do is to bring out recessive genes.
These genes can be either bad or good, depending upon the
particular allele.

Posted on 5/21/2004 5:00:19 PM by curmudgeonII

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-To: missyme

No doubt Princeton University will soon be hiring this
guy to work alongside Professor Singer, their high-paid
advocate of bestiality and infanticide.

Posted on 5/21/2004 5:02:27 PM by Cicero

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-To: curmudgeonII

"...or good"

Not "or", but try instead "bad and good". I realize that
with the technology avalible in the next few years we may
be able to "weed out" some of the bad recessives, it
still strikes me as a good idea to do our best to prevent
incest/inbreeding in humans.

Remember the last bunch that went for "selective trait
breeding"??? They walked really close to the inbreeding
line in their attempt to create the "Master Race".

On the other end of the spectrum is the unrestricted and
random inbreeding that has/does occured in isolated
populations or in populations with little moral/sexual
restraint.

That rarely brings out anything but bad.

Posted on 5/21/2004 5:14:15 PM by cavtrooper21

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-To: Polybius


Certainly, the inimitable Justice Kennedy's "transcendent
liberty" opinion is blanket coverage for whatever one may
dream up.

Posted on 5/21/2004 5:21:02 PM by jwalsh07

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End of forwarded messages from
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1140085/posts

Jai Maharaj
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti

Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust

Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org

The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate

The terrorist mission of Jesus stated in the Christian bible:

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth:
I came not so send peace, but a sword.
"For I am come to set a man at variance against his
father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter in law against her mother in law.
"And a man's foes shall be they of his own
household.
- Matthew 10:34-36.

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