Civil Unions in Oregon; Incest Prohibition Repeal Coming Next

Dale Carpenter at Volokh Conspiracy reports on Oregon legislature's passage of a civil unions bill for same-sex couples.

Just to add to the excitement, Professor Volokh discusses the emerging movement to decriminalize incest, with the Green Party in Germany backing a brother and sister who have had four children together, and Jeff Jacoby gives details on a number of suits in the U.S. attempting to decriminalize incest.

One commenter over at Volokh Conspiracy is clearly beginning to be bothered by the sight of the far end of the slippery slope which derives from the notion that anything that consenting adults do is okay:

If majority-status "consent" is the only criteria for distinguishing an activity as legal, then what's stopping us from consen[s]ual gladi[a]torial contests involving lethal duels?

Why do I get the impression that Western Civilization is sliding back to barbarity, on the heels of its most educated members?

The claim that what consenting adults do is none of the government's business would apply equally to racial discrimination in employment, or building a machine gun in your home, or having sex with animals, or torturing animals to death for a paying crowd. I think this would make a marvelous new reality show: "Let's see how long this dog stays alive, screaming in pain, while we slowly rip its skin off its body!" A lot of things involve consenting adults that civilized societies don't considerable acceptable--but in the pursuit of making one small group feel good about themselves by mandating legalization of same-sex marriage, the intellectuals are slowly destroying the basis for rules that define civilization.

Just to add to the insanity, Professor Volokh mentions that one American state has a provision in its incest law that gives a special legal status to one particular religion, by exempting uncle/niece marriages from the state's law banning incestuous marriages:

§ 15-1-4 Marriages of kindred allowed by Jewish religion. – The provisions of §§ 15-1-1 – 15-1-3 shall not extend to, or in any way affect, any marriage which shall be solemnized among the Jewish people, within the degrees of affinity or consanguinity allowed by their religion.

This means that members of one religion enjoy certain legal benefits that members of another religion do not. Imagine if an American state had a law on the books that said that the laws against child molestation didn't apply to Catholics. How many nanoseconds would it take for the ACLU to file suit for violating the First Amendment's guarantee against establishment of religion?

There might an argument that not writing such an exemption for Jews into the law would violate the freedom of religion clause--but even then, such a provision would have to apply to every religion or to non-religious persons to avoid establishment of religion problems.