Podcasts on Consanguinamory

There have been a series of podcasts coming out recently on consanguinamory. They've mostly focused on GSA, since there's been a wave of media coverage on GSA in the past couple of years. The Mike E & Emma podcast did a short interview with a woman in a relationship with her half-brother. They were really supportive, and it was nice to hear that the woman's family is supportive too.



Snap Judgement dedicated a portion of one of their episodes to an interview with a GSA couple. It also features supportive family members. It's so nice to hear stories of GSA couples getting acceptance, since so often the stories of GSA couples being arrested include family turning the couples in.



Now, after those short but important pieces, Nothing Off Limits has dedicated a string of podcast episodes to the subject, covering all possible angles. A podcast episode came out Sunday night featuring Cristina Shy. She did an excellent job, and the host is very understanding. This is the kind of coverage we need to move the movement forward. I want to thank both Cristina Shy and Michelle Ann Owens for all of this.



Cristina's final message is really powerful, and I wanted to reproduce it here for everyone who doesn't want to listen to the whole podcast:

America was founded on "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." People always forget about that last part. Freedom isn't just about doing whatever you want, it's about forging your own way in the world, and finding out how to be your best self. It's about making the world a better place for you, and those around you. My relationship with my brother is the best relationship I've ever had. Someone else coming and trying to ruin everything for us would not change what we've had. This relationship has made me grow as a person, and it has given me a reason to live. This is the path I have found for myself, and it has brought good into the world. And yet people still want to tell me that I do not have the right to decide what is best in life. They say I do not have the right to love this man, and be loved by this man. If they'd had their way, we never would've gotten together, and then I would never have learned all the things I've learned.

Imagine if every time you touched your partner affectionately, people harassed you. Image if you had to run in fear of the police finding out you were just having sex. Imagine if taking your kids to the doctor meant possibly losing them forever. What would the world look like then? I don't think it's a world anyone would want to live in, but that's the world everyone else is forcing us to live in. No-one should have the right to do this to another innocent person. We have not hurt anyone else, and we have not hurt each other. The world could only be better for letting us be free.

Edit:  The Nothing Off Limits episode with Jane of Consanguinamory.com has just come out. Jane did an excellent job! This has been some of the best and fairest coverage our community has gotten, ever. I want to thank everyone involved for their work. You can read Jane's original interview with Keith here.

Documentary: "Incest: The Last Taboo?"

Finally! The full version! I thought this documentary was lost when Current_ TV was sold to Aljazeera. I really have to thank Jane Doe for finding this.

This is, I think, the most even-handed portrayal of GSA I've seen. It shows people who never acted on their feelings, people who moved past their feelings willingly, people who were in relationships but were forced apart, and people who are still together. I also love that Barbara Gonyo is their primary source for a counselor's perspective.

They go through the standard scare-mongering regarding deformed children, but then show clearly that the children of consanguineous couples don't have to be deformed. They show that in many cases the feelings aren't reciprocated, but that sometimes they are, and in both cases broader awareness and acceptance is necessary to help them in the ways those specific people need.



I find the psychological analysis in this somewhat laughable, but that's where psychotherapy is currently at regarding GSA. What I'm more interested in are the people, and the people are amazing.

Another Woman Denied Her Rights

From Full Marriage Equality:

I'd say my childhood was pretty average really, good bits and bad bits as any normal family. There was a lot of arguing and hostility between my parents and they really should have had a divorce because it often made a bad atmosphere for a day or two after an argument. On the whole, they were normal parents except for their marital problems. I always spent more time with my dad than with my mum because my mum and I never really got along all that well; a personality clash I guess. It was a shame, but you cannot force a person to like you and get along with you.

"Do you think incest and polygamy will be legalized?" - Masterpost

I came across a poll on the subject of the future of full marriage equality:

I was watching a TV show recently and surprisingly, three characters (two men and a woman) got together in a sexual AND romantic relationship - as in, it wasn’t just a kink, they were serious about it, they even made their relationship official to their family/friends. And it got me thinking, do you guys think polygamy will ever be legalized? And incest? And should they be, and if not, why? Will our society ever see it as acceptable/normal like with gay relationships?

I thought it would be helpful to create one post where I link to everything:

• My initial response. I debunk the idea that no-one cares enough, argue against the usual eugenic argument, and also against the annoying argument I see all the time that amounts to, “Hah! All you can get is your mom?!” I also point out that polygamy/polyamorous marriage isn’t inherently sexist, because it includes polyandry and polygynandry. Women still have to consent.
• Eugenics is not a good argument, but it’s the only one that sounds kind of scientific and reasonable in people’s heads, so they always fall back on it. It doesn’t matter if it has strange and disturbing logical implications, apparently. Then I have to explain the difference between consensual sex and consensual cannibalism…
• I like this one. He provided me with an actual study for his statistic. I point out that it’s not as bad as he originally said, and either way the study itself points out that its findings are almost useless, because of sample bias.
• I have to further explain why eugenic arguments are logically dangerous, and how even by the standards of eugenics, laws banning consanguineous sex make zero sense.
• I lay down my arguments, once and for all, for why it makes sense and is just to have age-of-consent laws, but not laws against consanguineous sex. Let this be the end of it.
• I explain to someone why people are polyamorous, and how it can work successfully. I also point out an assumption in his own thinking about jealousy in monogamy.
• My closing statements.

"Do you think incest and polygamy will be legalized?" - Part 7

I came across a poll on the subject of the future of full marriage equality:

I was watching a TV show recently and surprisingly, three characters (two men and a woman) got together in a sexual AND romantic relationship - as in, it wasn’t just a kink, they were serious about it, they even made their relationship official to their family/friends. And it got me thinking, do you guys think polygamy will ever be legalized? And incest? And should they be, and if not, why? Will our society ever see it as acceptable/normal like with gay relationships?

Closing statements:

I don’t understand why y'all feel so comfortable trashing these people, and arguing for legally abusing them. Is it because y'all don’t know them personally? Well, I do, and they’re perfectly nice, reasonable people. Actually, some of them are nicer than the “normal” people I’ve met. They love one another. They take care of their kids. They pay taxes. Emotionally, I don’t understand how people can hate that so much. Trust me, just because you don’t think you know such a couple, doesn’t mean you don’t. The closet for both [polyamorous and consanguinamorous people] is large, and the closet for consanguineous couples is massive. It doesn’t mean they like living in fear and secrecy, and they shouldn’t have to. However, it’s easy enough for them to get away with it that they don’t risk rocking the boat.

It seems like what y'all want is to shove them into the closet and tell them to shut up, so y'all don’t have to be confronted with personal discomfort. Why should your personal discomfort have any relevance to law in a liberal country which enshrines protections for the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority? How does shaming people and telling them to shut up encourage abuse victims to come forward? And more importantly, how can you demand such a contract when it isn’t in good faith? These couples do hide in the closet. The problem is that when other people find out accidentally, they hunt them down and throw them in jail, even if they hid it well.
They need to fight these laws, because there is never any guarantee that the law won’t be used to abuse them, regardless of how they behave. The majority always loves telling minorities to shut up and go away when they complain. Meanwhile, minorities complain because, regardless of their silence and isolation, the majority still abuses some from time to time to make an example of them. There’s no other way for them to protect themselves, other than to fight the legal and social regime.

Most feel like the cost of fighting is too high, which is why it takes decades of momentum to get more to come out of the closet. That doesn’t mean they stay in the closet because they acquiesce to this “agreement”. They’re just afraid. They’re afraid of y'all. They’re adults with otherwise normal lives, who’ve done nothing to anyone that could ever be construed as harmful or destructive. Yet y'all have the power to utterly destroy them. Is that just? Are y'all really comfortable being potential threats to perfectly nice people, some of whom y'all may know? I don’t want to be a threat. I don’t think anyone should have the right to be - not towards good people like them.

"Do you think incest and polygamy will be legalized?" - Part 6

I came across a poll on the subject of the future of full marriage equality:

I was watching a TV show recently and surprisingly, three characters (two men and a woman) got together in a sexual AND romantic relationship - as in, it wasn’t just a kink, they were serious about it, they even made their relationship official to their family/friends. And it got me thinking, do you guys think polygamy will ever be legalized? And incest? And should they be, and if not, why? Will our society ever see it as acceptable/normal like with gay relationships?

Addendum on non-monogamy:

EVanimations, on 28 Apr 2014 - 9:51 PM, said:

Futurist, I’ll admit that I don’t know or care much about the issue at hand, so I’m not going to spend too much effort defending a position I’m unfamiliar with. That said, my opinion is that… well, incest is icky. I very much dislike the idea of having sex with someone directly related to me; it ain’t right.

[...] As for polygamy, I don’t like the idea of watching some other guy have sex with my woman, and I respect the fact that my woman doesn’t like the idea of watching some other girl have sex with me. Again, no reason to keep it illegal, but why would you want that in the first place if you truly respect each other? It feels kind of unfair to a woman who loves a man but has to share him with 5 others. Same the other way around.

I understand your personal aversions. “Wrong” for you, however, doesn’t automatically mean “wrong” for somebody else. There are advocates of same-sex marriage who still find the thought of having sex with someone of their own gender to be disgusting. Dan Savage, who gives advice mostly to straight people, still finds the idea of sex with a woman icky. People find the idea of having sex with someone they inherently don’t find appealing to be disturbing. However, other people are other people, and thoughts aren’t sufficient justification for police action. You seem to understand that though.

If you read poly* people’s writing - especially the philosophers and social theorists - many actually find the idea of sexual jealousy itself to be repugnant. They see it as a desire to control another person, to get love from them through social sanction and even legal force, and not through having earned it.

The argument is that if you’re constantly working to deserve their love, and they’re constantly working to deserve yours, then a fling on the side, or even a more long-term relationship on the side, isn’t threatening. Jealousy, however, particularly when worshiped as it is in monogamist cultures, can lead to immoral and antisocial behavior: spying, stalking, lying, yelling, beating, and even murder. Because our society worships monogamy, it inevitably also worships jealousy, and so encourages all of this destructive, unethical behavior.

There are people out there, a minority though they are, who don’t feel much jealousy in relationships. Besides that though, you’re buying into the monogamist line of thinking, which equates sex or even love of someone else with a betrayal of their love for you. Clearly, having sex with someone else doesn’t mean they don’t want to have sex with you. What’s harder for people to understand is that this can apply to love as well, though it’s more difficult.

I’d like to point out that there are many people who are dispositionally and openly polyamorous, but are in practice monogamous because they can’t find anyone else they like enough to integrate into their lives. I think most poly* people aren’t against monogamy, they just wish it was left to occur naturally, instead of yelling at people because they’re not doing it right. (I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing.)

The most common type of polyamory I’ve heard of is hierarchical polyamory. In that, there’s a primary relationship, which has veto power and the most romantic attachment, as well as secondary relationships, which can be long-term but aren’t as demanding or committed. Even in group marriages, different people add different things to each other’s lives, and so their love isn’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

When the relationship is all same-gender, or the other people involved are bisexual, it makes it easier because everyone is sexually and romantically bound to everyone. Common triads are between a bisexual man or woman, another bisexual of the same gender, and someone of the opposite gender. They can all have sex together, sleep together, wake up together, and they each fear the loss of both others. It helps to limit the risk of fragmentation - which is, to be fair, a legitimate worry.

"Do you think incest and polygamy will be legalized?" - Part 5

I came across a poll on the subject of the future of full marriage equality:

I was watching a TV show recently and surprisingly, three characters (two men and a woman) got together in a sexual AND romantic relationship - as in, it wasn’t just a kink, they were serious about it, they even made their relationship official to their family/friends. And it got me thinking, do you guys think polygamy will ever be legalized? And incest? And should they be, and if not, why? Will our society ever see it as acceptable/normal like with gay relationships?

This is the single most important argument I think I made. The distinction between the mental, ethical, and legal abilities of minors to consent is an important one, and one that rarely gets articulated. It’s an argument that doesn’t get brought too much, but is really annoying to deal with. I’m glad I could finally put down my thoughts on this definitively.

"Do you think incest and polygamy will be legalized?" - Part 4

I came across a poll on the subject of the future of full marriage equality:

I was watching a TV show recently and surprisingly, three characters (two men and a woman) got together in a sexual AND romantic relationship - as in, it wasn’t just a kink, they were serious about it, they even made their relationship official to their family/friends. And it got me thinking, do you guys think polygamy will ever be legalized? And incest? And should they be, and if not, why? Will our society ever see it as acceptable/normal like with gay relationships?

More eugenics...

This was a reply to a response I left to OrbitalResonance:

OrbitalResonance, on 28 Apr 2014 - 09:59 AM, said:

[...]

Yes, I am a fu!king Nazi. Don’t you ever use slippery slope with me you small minded buffoon. Incest is immoral while polygamy and homosexuality are acceptable. My logic is one that measures consent and consideration for the end result. There will be a line drawn.

Wasn’t saying you were in favor of those things. I’m making a point, that there’s no clear logical barrier between discriminating against one group[ of consensual adults'] reproductive rights regardless of their actual genes and behaviors, and [discriminating against] another group['s]. Some relatives could have healthy children, some wouldn’t. It depends on individual genomes, epigenomes, and lifestyles, all of which can be determined to some degree and used to make responsible decisions (which is what Israel did with the Samaritans). I think we should have free genetic screening and counseling for everyone, since it makes it easier for people to make responsible reproductive decisions.

The thing is, people who would never advocate for using state force to control people’s consensual sexual and reproductive lives will all of a sudden be okay [with it] when it comes to “incest”. It’s just because that’s the only logical sounding argument most can come up with besides “eww”. I’m saying a) it’s bad eugenic policy anyway, and b) people should be more careful suddenly becoming pro eugenics just because it serves them on one issue. After all, if we’re policing the gene pool and trying to prevent abnormal births, why aren’t we banning sex for people who are past middle age? The reason a eugenic argument allows for bad logical consequences, is because it’s being applied arbitrarily to a large group of people based on an act that’s not necessarily even reproductive. (I also don’t think eugenics is a proper role for a democratic state.)

Actually, let me quote that Slate article:

My guess is that this is how governments will manage unconventional sex practices in the next century. We can’t stop people from doing what they want to do. We’ll tell them what’s generally dangerous. And if they can adequately reduce the medical risks, by wearing a condom or taking a genetic test, we’ll look the other way. We’ll speak the language of science, or none at all.

"Do you think incest and polygamy will be legalized?" - Part 3

I came across a poll on the subject of the future of full marriage equality:

I was watching a TV show recently and surprisingly, three characters (two men and a woman) got together in a sexual AND romantic relationship - as in, it wasn’t just a kink, they were serious about it, they even made their relationship official to their family/friends. And it got me thinking, do you guys think polygamy will ever be legalized? And incest? And should they be, and if not, why? Will our society ever see it as acceptable/normal like with gay relationships?

Science!!

"Do you think incest and polygamy will be legalized?" - Part 2

I came across a poll on the subject of the future of full marriage equality:

I was watching a TV show recently and surprisingly, three characters (two men and a woman) got together in a sexual AND romantic relationship - as in, it wasn’t just a kink, they were serious about it, they even made their relationship official to their family/friends. And it got me thinking, do you guys think polygamy will ever be legalized? And incest? And should they be, and if not, why? Will our society ever see it as acceptable/normal like with gay relationships?

The argument continues:

"Do you think incest and polygamy will be legalized?" - Part 1

I came across a poll on the subject of the future of full marriage equality a while back:

I was watching a TV show recently and surprisingly, three characters (two men and a woman) got together in a sexual AND romantic relationship - as in, it wasn’t just a kink, they were serious about it, they even made their relationship official to their family/friends. And it got me thinking, do you guys think polygamy will ever be legalized? And incest? And should they be, and if not, why? Will our society ever see it as acceptable/normal like with gay relationships?

My response:

Things are changing, and more stories are coming to light

An interview with an Austrian couple (now in Germany) from VICE:

I met Tom* through his psychotherapist, who is a friend of mine, but he didn't want to meet me in person. He was worried I would judge or insult him. That's how others have reacted when he's told them about his life. He does want to talk, though—he says he wants to get the truth off his chest. So we arrange a Skype interview. He turns up in dark sunglasses and a hat to protect his identity. He promises he'll tell me everything as long as I don't reveal his personal details. If I did, I would be putting his freedom at stake.

Tom's profile picture shows him and his girlfriend, Lena. She hugs him from behind, lovingly kissing him on the neck. He is smiling, twining his fingers in her long, brown hair. Strictly speaking, nothing is wrong with this photo. It shows two people who love each other—a relationship based on mutual attraction.

But Lena is Tom's sister, and for most people this changes everything; the photograph actually becomes criminal evidence. "I'm scared of people finding me disgusting," says Tom. He looks away from me and claws at his fingers. He's been in a committed relationship with his sister for 20 years, and the couple has a child together. "There's nothing that I haven't heard before. People have called me a desecrator, sister-fucker, or simply retarded. And all that's come out of the mouths of people who were at one time my friends. Even if society won't recognize us, we exist and there are more of us than you think."

The "extended" Folgers "incest" commercial

This is really funny. Sort of dark, given that this kind of situation actually happens, but still really funny.

Why do we assume humans were always so obsessed with punishment?

When I came across this, my jaw dropped:

The Hadza certainly are egalitarian [...]. This does not mean that there are no individuals who would like to dominate others and have their way. It is simply difficult to boss others around. If a Hadza tries to tell others what to do, which does happen now and then, the others simply ignore it; if he or she persists, they just move to another camp. [...] Teenagers look up to adults and get along well with their elders. This is at least partly due to the fact that adults do not try to control them and rarely express strong opinions about whom they should marry. [...] The Hadza have very few taboos compared to most ethnic groups in Tanzania. [...] There are more norms than taboos.

[...] In 1911, Obst observed: "What I could find out about the [Hadza's] family life suggests that they treat each other more cordially than the surrounding Bantu families do. No father would sell his daughter to somebody if the girl does not love the man or had not made arrangements with him." [...]. This is still true today. Female choice appears to be the main factor influencing Hadza marriage. [...] Median age at first marriage is 21 years for men and 17 years for women [...].

[...] Occasionally, a Hadza woman marries a non-Hadza, moves away, and has a child with him. Very often, however, the woman eventually leaves her husband and returns to raise the child in a Hadza camp. This seems to be because Hadza women are too independent to put up with the sort of treatment they get from non-Hadza men. Hadza women have a good deal of independence and often speak their minds. But with non-Hadza men, they are looked down on, given orders, and more often beaten, so they want to leave and return to a Hadza camp. When Hadza women return to a Hadza camp, they do not experience any notable stigma, nor does a child with a non-Hadza father [...]. [...] Occasionally, non-Hadza men take up life in a Hadza camp with their Hadza wives, and these marriages are more enduring because the men treat their wives better; in fact, they begin to behave just like Hadza men.

Obst [...] said that a man could marry anyone other than his mother or sister and that one man even married his granddaughter. The Hadza, like people in most societies, say that it is not acceptable to marry anyone who is a parent, [offspring], sibling, grandparent, grandchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, or niece [...]. They usually say it is not good to marry first cousins [...]. However, as with the few other rules one can elicit from the Hadza, there is little to no enforcement. I know one man who married his niece. One man even married his sister. While other Hadza shake their heads and say it is not right, no one feels compelled to do anything about it. So even though these norms are well understood and recognized by all Hadza, there is simply no strong sentiment that others should enforce them. To a remarkable extent, individuals are free to do what they want.

[...] [W]ife beating appears to be fairly rare. [...] Rape of a Hadza woman by a Hadza man is extremely rare since the woman's family would not sit idly by [...].

- Frank Marlowe, The Hadza Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania

You have understand, this is a very widely read book. I keep reading in academic works about how consanguinamory doesn't happen, except in a few rare cases of GSA, and that no society except Egypt approved. I have so many questions about these couples, but Marlowe never deigned to write about them except for this single paragraph. Things like this make you wonder whether consanguinamory has been observed frequently, but simply goes unmentioned and unstudied.

I don't know if I believe the grandfather-granddaughter case, especially since Obst was only a German colonial official, and not the best ethnographer, but Marlowe is a much more reliable source, and his observations are recent. The Hadza aren't unusual among egalitarian cultures in how they do not enforce their "incest" norms. I wouldn't be surprised if a general disinterest in controlling other people's behavior, including when it comes to consanguinamory, goes all the way back to our earliest ancestors. Non-human animals don't enforce taboos against consanguinamory, and property-less hunter-gatherers across the board don't care much for controlling other people's behavior.

One of the things they illustrate is that one can have a society with almost total wealth equality, high equality between men and women, almost non-existent rape and murder, and an allowance for consenting adult relatives to form sexual relationships. The last is not mutually exclusive with the others. I have not been able to find any reports of pedophilia or familial rape among the Hadza either.

If this is what a society tolerant of consanguinamory looks like, what exactly are people afraid of?

A Same-Sex Marriage Still Denied

From Full Marriage Equality:

My name is Joel and I live in Texas. My brother and I work together. Elijah and I are identical twins. [...] We are in our late 20s, although we look much younger than that. In addition to my twin we have one other sibling, a younger brother, although he has a different dad. We never call each other “half-siblings” and personally I hate the term “half-sibling.”

I make enough that I can afford the life I want, and Elijah makes about the same. I don’t have children, I don’t plan on adopting, and I have no desire to have children. In my free time I play board games, and go to nudist resorts.  I am gay and polyamorous, and so is my twin, but right now it is only the two of us in this relationship.

[...] No I am not married, nor have I ever been. I would love to get married to my brother if it were legal. We have not really thought about have a ceremony, but after visiting your site we might plan one.

[...] Our mother was 14 when she got pregnant with [the two of] us, and struggled to make money until we were around 8.  It’s not that she was totally poor; her parents did help out and they even paid for us to go to a private school. Our mother was always very accepting, she even told us when we had the sex talk that if one or both of us were gay it would be fine. This was back in the late 90’s in Texas, so she was very progressive for the day.  She also let all three of us get earrings when we turned 7. Oddly enough, she is very tall, being over six feet.

[...] Our dad is my mother’s foster sibling. Now I know that technically means it is not incest, but most people would call it that [and in some jurisdictions it could legally be considered incest]. He told me that he had always been close to our mother, and he wishes he could have helped us out more, but he just did not have the money and he was going to college.  Once he did, though, he had mom move in and bring the three of us. This was in a small town so he had to be discrete with his relationship.  Later, he told us that he and his sister had feelings for each other back in high school. He is great dad and I make sure to call him dad in private.

[...] We first made out with each other when we were young. I remember we were at a campsite walking in the woods, just the two of us.  I made the comment that it’s like we are on a date. I took his hand and I then leaned in and we kissed for the first time. At first we tried to explain it away as it is just experimenting or a phase, but we did keep kissing at night in our bed and even when we took baths together.

[...] We knew that most people would not like us for even being gay, and since we went to a Catholic school we always tried to not let people know about us. When I started to feel attracted to Elijah I didn’t think it was wrong, but knew most people would. I always felt very strong romantic feelings for him and I never once felt like we forced each other. When I told Elijah for the first time that I loved him more than a brother and I wanted to always be with him, I was so nervous because I knew that even though Elijah would say the same, most people would not accept this. Overall, I think I have the healthiest relationship of my social circle.

[...] We have been together 12 years. We use the date that we first said we want to be more than brothers as an anniversary date. Right now, we have a stable relationship and we have a two-bedroom apartment together. [...] Really, at this point, the family and lover roles are inseparable. [...] We have been in a few poly relationships, and we have been in a few sexual parties, but we have never not been together.

[...] Our father and mother found about us when we were still teens, when she caught us having sex. Our mother was very understanding and just wanted to make sure that it was consensual. Dad also just told us to make sure to keep it secret. That’s when we found out their relationship was fully sexual. [...] Finding a poly group was great since they are rather supportive about us, and we do make out in the woods when we go camping. Mostly we keep any signs of our relationship private. [...][M]ost of our friends are gay poly people, or furries. I think we are very lucky to have any support.

[...] I remember one time I asked someone about consensual incest between adults foster siblings. He said that people who would do that should not be allowed to have kids since they are likely to molest them. I simply told him that that’s not true since I was not molested. I did not stick around to see his reaction.

[...] We have a met a brother sister couple in real life. They moved away shortly after we met them, but they were happy together. [...][We want to f]ind another person to add to our relationship since we do want a poly relationship.

"Sibling couple call for change in the law"

This article is from several years ago, but it's still relevant. These things happen. Consanguinamorous couples are a fact. People can either deal with that fact in a mature way, or they can stick their heads in the sand, but neither will change the truth.

A couple are calling for a change in the law in the Irish Republic after discovering they are half-brother and sister. They are opposed to a law which allows the identity of a child's father to be withheld if it is thought to be in the child's best interests.

James and Maura (not their real names) have been together for seven years and have a five-year-old son. In April, a DNA test confirmed they were related. They met "as two strangers" from different parts of Ireland. James told BBC Radio 5 live's Victoria Derbyshire: "Everything about her attracted me to her. We agreed on everything." For Maura, it was "his eyes".

They had a long-distance relationship before settling down together and were delighted when Maura became pregnant. After her son was born, Maura felt it was important for James to contact his estranged mother. James visited his mother at Christmas. When they started talking about Maura, his mother asked him questions about what she did and about her parents. She seemed very interested in Maura's father and started asking what he looked like, said James.

As the realisation dawned, the expression on her face "was just horrible", he told Victoria Derbyshire. "She put her hand over her face and said 'You're not serious?'". His mother then went into her room and James knocked on the door. "I said 'Mam what's wrong?' She wouldn't answer for a while. She said to stay away from her. I remember sitting by the door…eventually she said 'He's your Dad'."
James broke the news to Maura when he returned home. Maura said: "At first I didn't want to believe it." A DNA test confirmed that James and Maura were half-siblings.

James' mother later told him the whole story of his childhood. She said James' real father had found out about him when he was four-years-old and had taken legal action to try to get access to him. The court decided not to grant it and the name on his birth certificate remained that of his mother's husband. He grew up believing that he was his natural father.

[...] James and Maura are still together. They were distant at first, James said, but "it's very hard to try and take away seven years". Family relationships have been strained. Both Maura's parents know, but others don't. James sees his real dad now, though the couple never meet him together. They have not told their son. "We want to tell him when he gets older... but we have to do it in such a way that it doesn't impact him," James said.

The couple are planning to get married and perhaps have another child. James' birth certificate means they are not brother and sister in the eyes of the law. James said: "If they could turn a blind eye to my birth certificate, they can turn a blind eye to my marriage certificate." Maura added: "It was always our plan to get married; we won't change our plans to suit these people who created us."

"Man tries to stop paying alimony over ex-wife’s polygamy"

An upstate judge nixed a divorced man’s bid to cut off alimony to his ex-wife when she joined a “Big Love”-style marriage — because polygamy is not legal in the Empire State. Dr. David Hunsinger split from his wife of 19 years, professor Patricia Hunsinger, in 2009. Their separation agreement said David, 54, who earns a higher salary than his ex as a family physician in Binghamton, had to pay the Ithaca College art professor alimony until 2023 or until she remarried. In July, David asked Justice Philip Rumsey if he could stop the payments because Patricia, 54, had “entered into a polygamous marriage with Dr. Kenneth Hill and Janice Hill.” To complicate matters, the two couples were not strangers. David Hunsinger and Kenneth Hill did their medical residencies together.

In a diary entry written prior to her divorce, Patricia confessed about “her desire to be married to Kenneth Hill and of her plan for a polyamorous relationship with both Hills,” according to court papers. In the alimony proceeding, David told the judge the threesome lives together in Ithaca and that Patricia wears a “ring comprised of three intertwined bands that was given to her by the Hills,” the Nov. 19 ruling states. Patricia also says in a January 2012 e-mail to David that she wanted the Hills at their daughter’s wedding because, “I am married to both of them,” according to a copy of the message obtained by The Post. But when it came to giving up alimony, Patricia didn’t want to admit she was remarried.

The judge sided with the ex-wife, ruling that “New York allows a person to have only one spouse at a time; a marriage is absolutely void if contracted by a person who is already legally married to another.” Michael Stutman, head of family law at Mishcon de Reya, said the decision was striking for taking on questions related to atypical families like those portrayed in HBO’s “Big Love.” “I have never seen anything like this outside of Utah, a woman getting paid [alimony] and living out a ‘Big Love’ lifestyle in her twilight years,” Stutman said.

David will have to keep paying support — unless the threesome moves to Utah, the only state where polygamous cohabitation is legal. David’s attorney, Anthony Elia, is considering an appeal. The decision “allows [Patricia] to say that her illegal conduct is a defense to the case,” Elia said. “I don’t understand the logic.”

This article from the New York Post is a bit confused, which is not surprising. Outside of a certain socially liberal bubble, most people have never heard of polyamory. They confuse religious polygamy with polyfidelity (i.e. secular polygamy), and fail to realize how common it is among educated coastal liberals. The only thing unusual about this situation is the continued alimony payments. That said, I agree with the judge's legal reasoning. This is one of the reasons full marriage equality would help many more people than just those directly involved in alternative relationships. No-one lives in a vacuum - certainly not poly* people.

Fundamentalists on Polyamory and Consanguinamory

I came across this when searching for this poignant story. It’s a website for reactionary evangelicals, primarily ones who oppose the liberalization taking place in their own church hierarchies. They’re commenting on the same story.
The comments are fascinating to read. The topic forces them to delve into not just homosexuality, but polyamory and consanguinamory. What makes their conversation important is that the people commenting aren’t your standard fare reactionaries: they’re very articulate and aware of the various arguments. This gives us a great window into what we’re fighting against.

"I've got two boyfriends. It's time polyamory became socially acceptable."

This short video from The Guardian lays out many of the arguments for social and legal equality, very quickly.

Simon Copland's two partners know about each other. In fact, it was James who introduced him to Martyn. Their polyamorous lifestyle is based on the belief that love is limitless. But if all love is equal, why do those in alternative relationships miss out on social and legal benefits that other couples enjoy? 

"Winning Rights for the Polyamorous"

This is a great piece via Full Marriage Equality about the history of the struggle for same-sex marriage, and what the success of same-sex marriage means for non-monogamous marriage. It makes several good points, the most important of which is that struggles for child custody laws and property rights independent of marriage will need to come first.

On October 6, the Supreme Court denied review, without comment, of all seven petitions addressing state court decisions to overturn same-sex marriage bans. The practical implication of these decisions is that same-sex marriage will become law, piecemeal, through state court decisions.

This outcome was not unpredictable; in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on September 17, Justice Ginsburg predicted that “cases pending before the circuit covering Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee would probably play a role in the high court’s timing.” She said “there will be some urgency” if that circuit allows same-sex marriage bans to stand. Such a decision would “run contrary to a legal trend favoring gay marriage and force the Supreme Court to step in sooner.”

In other words, the reason for the Supreme Court’s silence (and tacit approval) might be the clear trend of public opinion supporting same-sex marriage, evidenced by the overall agreement among state courts. This interpretation reinforces something that law and society scholars have studied in other contexts: the relationship between legal and social mobilization for rights is spiral-shaped. Law can sometimes push society, and changes in the zeitgeist can produce legal change in their turn.

This approach offers considerable hope to a group of people whose rights are not addressed by the latest developments: polyamorous activists. Polyamory is the practice of having multiple romantic relationships, simultaneously, with the knowledge and consent of all parties. Polyamorous relationships can take many forms, from committed triads to more fluid networks of partners and lovers.

Shortly after the first San Francisco round of same-sex marriages in 2004 I interviewed polyamorous activists, who at the time expressed little interest in legal activism. This was partly out of deference to the same-sex marriage struggle. More recently, however, with the success of marriage equality, the community is exhibiting more interest in legal recognition of polyamorous relationships. Some of this renewed interest in legal mobilization is inspired by same-sex marriage, and some of it relates to the increased public visibility of polyamory; nonmonogamous relationships have been highlighted on several popular television shows, like Big Love, Sister Wives, and Polyamory: Married and Dating.

But while these developments open the door to legal recognition of multiparty relationships, they also create considerable challenges for polyamorous activists. Social movement scholars usually assume that struggles for legal rights are incremental — that is, progress for a given movement increases the chances that the movement that follows it will be successful. But sometimes, this “spillover” effect is more complicated.

As Gwendolyn Leachman and I argue in a longer piece, a big part of the success of same-sex marriage can be attributed to the change in the character of the struggle. In the 1970s, gay liberationists sought marriage not as a realistic option, but as a form of symbolic protest against the oppression of heteronormativity, which for them was represented by marriage. While “rogue” marriage cases continued to hit the courts on occasion, the movement overall turned to other, less extreme forms of legal recognition: antidiscrimination lawsuits, child custody cases, and the like. It’s not so much that the gay rights movement was too radical for marriage; it’s more accurate to say that, at the time, marriage was too radical for them as an attainable goal. It was only after the surprising legal success in Hawaii that activists turned their attention again to marriage in a serious way. By then, public opinion in favor of same-sex marriage had begun to change, and its proponents presented a mainstream, “just-like-you” version of marriage to a less-threatened mainstream public.

In the recent Supreme Court cases, U.S. v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry, this mainstream argument relied, in part, on differentiating the nonthreatening, hardly-radical character of same-sex marriage from other relationship structures, including nonmonogamous relationships. In one of many examples, Ted Olson, arguing on behalf of same-sex marriage activists, explicitly distinguished the two, saying that “the polygamy issue, multiple marriages raises questions about exploitation, abuse, patriarchy, issues with respect to taxes, inheritance, child custody, it is an entirely different thing. And if a state prohibits polygamy, it’s prohibiting conduct. If it prohibits gay and lesbian citizens from getting married, it is prohibiting their exercise of a right based upon their status.”

Clearly, polyamorous activists are not solely benefitting from the success of the marriage equality struggle; they also have to overcome the hurdles that success has created for them. If their success is to follow a similar pattern, there may be other victories, in areas of adoption, custody and employment discrimination, that need to be won first. And a crucial component of their struggle’s success would be a significant improvement in public opinion of nonmonogamous relationships, which is complicated by anti-Mormon and anti-Islamist sentiments. The most important lessons that polyamorous activists can learn from same-sex marriage proponents is the need to address several different fronts, courting public opinion and legal mobilization simultaneously, as well as the immense value of the passage of time in bringing about broader tolerance.