With gay marriage decided, what will be the next big left-led social change?

[Stoney]

Fun Fact: Iceland is so small and so many of the people there are related, an app was developed to tell if the girl you were hitting on at the bar in Reykjavik was a cousin or not.

Best opening line in Reykjavik: Hey baby, foreigner here, check out my differentiated DNA.

 

[doctorquant]

We were just talking about this the other day at work. I don't think it's as convincing as we think it is, particularly to justify bans on cousin and second cousin incest. We talked about this in Family Law, in fact, for a day or so.

Have you ever read about the East Ramapo (NY) school district troubles? Apparently there's a pretty elevated risk of birth defects among the Hasidim given how close-knit and procreative their communities are.

 

[JayFarrar]

Best opening line in Reykjavik: Hey baby, foreigner here, check out my differentiated DNA.

My sister played professional basketball in Iceland. She noted that other American athletes, military types and foreign tourists were in high demand when they went out.

 

[expendable]

My sister played professional basketball in Iceland. She noted that other American athletes, military types and foreign tourists were in high demand when they went out.

SJ outing in Iceland!?!?

 

[YankeeFan]

Asexual rights!

MC's head might explode:

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Why do I give a shirt whether two gays, or three polygamists marry? Its a serious question, why am I supposed to give a shirt? Is it going to affect my 22 year marriage? Tell me what I am missing.

Well, for starters, if polygamy is legalized, your wife may want to find a second or third husband.

 

[Guy_Incognito]

Unless you are privy to new research that I have not seen (that has been peer reviewed and published), I think the science on increasing the risk of genetic mutations (doubling your chances of passing on recessive genes, for example) is pretty convincing. I also don't want any of the fine people in my home state of Montana (to say nothing of the Dakotas, Idaho and the entire Ozark region) to wall themselves off from society and begin to legal marry and procreate with their children, which would fall under the whole "legal adult consenting without coercion" clause.

Oh please. First, as DW said, that doesn't really work for cousins. Second, people marry every day after genetic testing predicts high risks of bad disease. Consenting adults, eyes open, what's the problem. If 40 year old brother and sister say they're in love, why should the state intervene? To protect a hypothetical unborn child? What if they promise to use birth control, and you test them periodically and abort any children?

I never understood the "rape and incest" carve out on abortions either. Why should abortion be allowed more for a consenting, adult woman who was involved in an incestuous relationship than a non-incestuous one?

 

[BDC99]

I never understood the "rape and incest" carve out on abortions either. Why should abortion be allowed more for a consenting, adult woman who was involved in an incestuous relationship than a non-incestuous one?

Well, I don't think you'll find a whole lot of rape and incest that is consensual.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Oh please. First, as DW said, that doesn't really work for cousins. Second, people marry every day after genetic testing predicts high risks of bad disease. Consenting adults, eyes open, what's the problem. If 40 year old brother and sister say they're in love, why should the state intervene? To protect a hypothetical unborn child? What if they promise to use birth control, and you test them periodically and abort any children?

I never understood the "rape and incest" carve out on abortions either. Why should abortion be allowed more for a consenting, adult woman who was involved in an incestuous relationship than a non-incestuous one?

Because when "incest" is mentioned in the debate, they're not talking about adult women.

 

[Guy_Incognito]

Then it's rape.

 

[Vombatus]

SJ outing in Iceland!?!?

heck, yes!!! I'm in.

 

[93Devil]

LOL ... The Cosby Show had the third-highest rating in 1984-1985. You might have thought the world was going to end, but your fellow Americans didn't seem to share that feeling.

But I'm an old white man from Texas and laughing at those silly Jeffersons is just as good!

'Cosby Show' comedy had a serious impact - The Boston Globe

How The Cosby Show spoke to race and class in '80s America · TV Club 10 · The A.V. Club

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/arts/television/08cosb.html?_r=0

But one idea seems to be gaining traction, and improbably it has Bill Cosby and Karl Rove in agreement: "The Cosby Show," which began on NBC in 1984 and depicted the Huxtables, an upwardly mobile black family — a departure from the dysfunction and bickering that had characterized some previous shows about black families — had succeeded in changing racial attitudes enough to make an Obama candidacy possible.

On election night Mr. Rove, the former Bush strategist, said on Fox News: "We've had an African-American first family for many years in different forms. When 'The Cosby Show' was on, that was America's family. It wasn't a black family. It was America's family."

Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, a psychiatrist at the Jude Baker Children's Center in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School who was a script consultant on "The Cosby Show," said in an interview that "there were a lot of young people who were watching that show who are now of voting age."

Dr. Poussaint added: "When 'The Cosby Show' first came on, it was a professional, middle-class family. And they said, 'That's not a black family.' We heard it from blacks and whites. I think that's why Karl Rove calls it postracial, because it was universal."