Apr 23, 2009 -- 10:12PM, DaLight wrote:

I'm just confused on how I should reply to someone who asks, on what basis do we deny rights for polygamy or even incest (if we make sterilization mandatory before marriage to insure children are not born with health problems). I just want someone to enlighten me on this.

And that has what to do with sexual orientation? "We" are making sterilization mandatory...? Do you have some inside knowledge concerning this subject? Could you give me a source?

This thread was moved from Sexual Orientation Debate as it was off topic for sexual orientation.

A compelling understanding of incest can be gleaned from reading a mesmerizing short story by Theodore Sturgeon, "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" It first appeared in the SF Magazine, Dangerous Visions in 1970 and was included in an anthology, Case and The Dreamer, published in 1974 by Nelson Doubleday, Inc., Garden City, New York. An excerpt from p.98:

". . .what's wrong with incest? . . ." (reply) "You breed too close, you get faulty offspring. Idiots and dead babies without heads and all that." . . . "Where do you go for evidence?" "To dinner, for one place, where you'll eat idiot pig or feeble-minded cow. Any livestock breeder will tell you that, once you have a strain you want to keep and develop, you breed father to daughter and to grand-daughter, and then brother to sister. You keep that up indefinitely until the desirable trait shows up recessive, and you stop it there. But it might never show up recessive."

Read the whole story. Indeed, read the whole book. Sturgeon writes page-turners.

So the whole thing comes down to cultural indoctrination. Remember, most royal families survived just fine with incest. In fact, incest was REQUIRED for royals.

Peace.