Happy Sibling Couples

It isn’t hard to find widely publicized accounts of abuse by an older sibling against a significantly younger minor sibling. That, along with parents abusing their minor children is referred to as “incest,” and the impression given is that such abusive relationships are the totality of incest.

But there are consanguineous pairs who are truly consenting, and can lead happy lives together as adults. Due to prejudice and ignorance, we don’t hear about them often. As long as that is so, it will be harder to reach full marriage equality.

You can find some of these sibling couples on the GSA website. Back in August of 2004, someone by the name of “rollingrocker1972” wrote…

My sister and I were both single when we met. We have no children and our relationship with our family, while not strained, is somewhat distant. As a result no one was hurt or betrayed when we became involved. We've been together for several years now and intend to be together for the rest of our lives. We consider ourselves married. A legal marriage is of course impossible, but so what? As long as we keep the fact that we're half-siblings a secret it is highly unlikely that we will ever have any problems.

Although he was resigned at the time to legal marriage being “impossible,” it doesn’t have to be. We can make it happen. Why keep them from being happy? Slowly, we are making progress towards marriage equality. I look forward to the day when he and his sister won’t have to hide.