I am surely going to regret posting this, but hey nobody said you could stay on the cutting edge of the blogosphere by playing it safe…

So in the small society (and I use the term loosely) of my Facebook friends, people were very angry about the North Carolina amendment prohibiting gay marriage. One of the particular jokes, though, upon reflection is a bit odd.

So first, the joke: Flying around my “news feed” were several variations of a poster, showing a guy saying:

IN NORTH CAROLINA, YOU CAN MARRY YOUR FIRST COUSIN.

JUST NOT YOUR GAY FIRST COUSIN.

OK, that’s funny and I probably chuckled the first time I saw it. But why is it funny? Clearly, the only reason is that even the people pushing the poster around agree that barring first-cousin marriage is somehow more understandable than a state barring marriage between homosexuals.

OK, so where do that get off with that judgment? It can’t be because of the danger to children, since the proponents of gay marriage have made it abundantly clear that arguments about procreation are invalid. And it sure can’t be because, “Most people think first cousin marriage is unnatural and icky”–I have numerous FB status updates from various people yesterday, saying what they think about that kind of stance.

There are currently 25 (I counted fast, don’t quote me) states that prohibit first-cousin marriage. Isn’t this a monstrous violation of individual liberty? If two cousins love each other and want to spend their lives together, why should a state government have anything to say about it?

As most readers of this blog know, I am a Bible-believing Christian but also a pacifist who doesn’t endorse any form of the State apparatus as a way of achieving social objectives. So I obviously don’t think the government should have anything to do with telling people whom they can and can’t marry.

Yet I really do think this indignant reaction–pointing out that North Carolina allows first cousins to marry but not homosexuals–is interesting. For example, imagine if the NAACP launched a poster campaign after the Trevor Martin shooting that said, “Florida: A State Where You Get More Jail Time For Shooting an Illegal Than a Black Citizen.” Would civil rights activists have thought that was funny? I doubt it, because they would have been just as horrified if Zimmerman (in their minds) targeted and killed an illegal immigrant in cold blood.

So again I point out: Every single argument I have seen for gay marriage on FB, would also show that it is monstrous for States to prohibit first cousins from marrying. Thus, why was that joke about North Carolina funny, to the people who are really outraged by the amendment?