by Ben Johnson
This article was first published October 31, 2014, at LifeSiteNews.com.
The New York state Court of Appeals has trimmed back a state law banning incestuous marriages, allowing an uncle and niece to marry one another. The decision allows the woman, a Vietnamese immigrant, to avoid deportation. Read more…
When marriage laws are amended to bring same-sex couples within their ambit, those couples become subject to the existing restrictions imposed by blood and family ties (consanguinity and affinity) which forbid people from marrying someone too close to them. So if a woman cannot marry her brother, uncle or nephew, neither can she marry her sister, aunt or niece. Simple, right? As far as it goes, yes. But not once we consider the rationale behind consanguinity restrictions and what the application of the “marriage equality” paradigm to them is likely to lead to. Read more…
Celebrity therapist and “life coach” Dr. Keith Ablow just jumped on the “let’s get the government out of the marriage business” bandwagon. I have been writing against the “privatizing marriage” mantra, going all the way back to 2005. (See also here and here.) I do not wish to rehearse those arguments here. But Dr. Ablow’s contribution to this unfortunate genre is doubly regrettable. He is, first of all, deeply mistaken about the government’s role in discouraging people from marriage. As a psychiatrist, he has no particular expertise in policy analysis, and I am sorry to say, it shows. My second regret about his foray into policy analysis is that he forsakes the area of his greatest expertise, namely, helping people live happier lives. His proposal to “get the government out of the marriage business” substitutes an easy exit strategy for the genuine work of building up marriage and family relationships. Read more…
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