Dirty Dishes	Dirty Dishes Archive

Ex-Senator Rick Santorum predicted it. First, gay marriage, then a Mormon running for President, and now news from Germany about Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski.

It seems Patrick, now 30, was given up for adoption and only sought out and met his biological family when he was 23. After his biological mother died, Patrick and his recently-discovered sister fell in love and have been living together for the last six years; they have four children, three of whom have been taken by the state and placed in foster homes.

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ncest remains a criminal offense in Germany. According to BBC News, Patrick has already served a two-year sentence for committing incest, and there is another jail term looming if paragraph 173 of the legal code is not overturned. "Many people see it as a crime, but we've done nothing wrong," Patrick told the BBC. "I hope this law will be overturned," Susan added. "I just want to live with my family, and be left alone by the authorities and by the courts." Amen, Susan.

In modern condemnation of incest, science has stepped in to play the role previously assigned to religion: since the brand of "sin" no longer inhibits, the scientific condemnation of "reproductive unfitness" is hauled out-- siblings should be banned from sexually relating because, the white coats claims, their issue is likely to be defective.

But do we really want the state to start concerning itself with partners' reproductive worthiness? Should a state-issued certificate be required before giving birth?

And what would the rationale be for outlawing homo-incest amongst siblings? With the already-dubious objection about inbreeding removed, how can the state claim the need to ban bro-on-bro or sis-on-sis sex?

No, paragraph 173 belongs in the dustbin along with anti-gay paragraph 175. (For curious readers, paragraph 174 appears to be a ban on sex with dependents, while paragraph 176 outlaws sex with anyone under age 14; under the Nazis, violators of any of these sex crime paragraphs wore the pink triangle.)