Time magazine's got an interesting piece today to examine. Their headline is, "Should Incest Be Legal?"

It's not quite what you'd think. The article's actually an exploration of the aftermath of Lawrence V. Texas (the striking down of Texas' sodomy laws on privacy grounds). At the time, there were those who said this laid open the grounds for lawsuits on a host of other subjects. From the article:

It turns out the critics were right. Plaintiffs have made the decision the centerpiece of attempts to defeat state bans on the sale of sex toys in Alabama, polygamy in Utah and adoptions by gay couples in Florida. So far the challenges have been unsuccessful. But plaintiffs are still trying. Even using Lawrence to challenge laws against incest.

The article examines a case of something that would be illegal in one state, but not in others - a case of a man who had (consensual) sex with his (adult, age 22) stepdaughter. Yes, it's weird. But on such weird grounds do such cases often float. The larger part of the article has to do with what a "compelling state interest" - the grounds on which Lawrence V. Texas was decided - might be. I'm not too interested in the Incest example, though there's a plethora of jokes - in Hollywierd and other places - about people who get together, make a couple bad decisions, and then find out later that they are blood-related cousins or somesuch.

Alabama's got a ban on sex toys. Specifically, a ban on devices sold for the purpose of "the stimulation of human genital organs." While it was overturned in 2002 (on LvT grounds), it was restored in 2004 by the 11th Circuit. Should this be the case? Alabama's legislature says this would open the doors for other, worse things. Most sex toys look more like something you'd laugh at. Besides, Alabama (to be fair, along with a host of other states) already lets cousins marry freely.

The other interesting thought about this is what, if anything, it does to the idea of polygamy/polyandry and group marriages. My major beef with polygamy is that, uniformly, it has just about always been a method by which men exploited women. Multiple marriage in ancient dynasties was limited to the rich and powerful assembling themselves a harem. The "prophet" Mohammed went around catching wives wherever he could, including telling his son to hand over his wife because he thought she was hot (Zainab bint Jahsh), marrying and having sex with a prepubescent girl (Aisha), and raping a girl the night after ordering her tribe's men(including her husband) slaughtered, calling it a marriage only the next day (Safiya). To this day, one of the threats a Muslim man can give to his wife for being "willful" in Muslim nations is the threat to go get another wife. (see Nonie Darwish's commentary here for a starter.)

Mormon marriage - especially the kind of child abuse practiced by the fundamentalist mormons - I consider to have been just as bad in the past. There are, however, some people who claim it's a good thing. My take on this is that first, the marriage laws have to be equal - if a man can have more than 1 wife, then the wife should be allowed more than 1 husband. Of course, this can get tricky (marriage records would get insane the more in a marriage there were). If a group of people can make it work, I can't really tell them no - but the prerequisites HAVE to be that it's consensual, and all are of age to make the decision of their own free will.

Should all of these be struck down on the basis of Lawrence V. Texas? I'm not sure. I think the Alabama lawmakers who came up with the sex toy ban probably have too much time on their hands, and the ban offends my libertarian bent. I think that incest laws straddle the line pretty closely, again predicated on the consent/age factor. Most of the court cases likely to come up with relation to this, alas, are going to be the kind of creepy cases people want to throw the book at anyways, so don't expect it to be settled.

As for the polygamy thing? The US has a ban on polygamy, but it's state by state. If one state allowed it, the rest aren't legally allowed to show it equal treatment, as per the wording of the "Defense of Marriage Act." If one state did, expect uproar. Unlikely to happen short of a really bizarre court ruling, but possible on those accounts.