...tolerance? By failing to understand that homosexuality is something completely different from incest?

Tolerance doesn't mean you have to understand anything. Tolerance doesn't even mean you have to like it or approve of it.

Tolerance merely means you are prepared to accept that other people think and act differently to you. You know... that you are prepared to tolerate what they do.

Come on, Lib. I know picking on retired ladies is a sport for you, but you really can do better than this.

..I know I could do better, I mean I wish I could spend my evenings somewhere in a Stube eating good food and all, but you fail to understand my point...and that's alright. Homosexuality, incest, flushing toilets after 10pm and all that other evil stuff should be banned IMO, but I'll have to tolerate it.

Evil? Who mentioned evil?

And what have your knee-jerk, intolerant witterings got to do with the subject of the thread, anyway?

It seems to me that most of you are missing, or avoiding the point. The euphemism "sleeping with" actually means having sex with. So if close relatives are sleeping together, the risk of producing defective kids is high. That's why there are laws against incest. To declare that these things are unimportant in the face of the important issues facing the Swiss government is crass. Wake the f**k up!

Do they sell condoms in Switzerland, I wonder?

..you know us older folks aren't used to this new way of thinking. Especially right after television came out and introduced all this homosexuality and incest to the masses...we really didn't understand the world anymore. I mean we used to go witch hunting once in a while and all of the sudden this homos and incest loving people started flooding the streets holding incest and homo parades. It's just all the same thing...really...but we have to be tolerant.

@LiB and @Dougal's Breakfast. I think you should both respectfully beg to differ, shake hands and move on . . .

No, no, let them fight it out, like true gentlemen.

..actually, he's been on my case for the last couple of days. So either he's got some personal issues with me, or he's into man love, which I'm not into but I totally tolerate....but you're right, this is getting a tad bit too insipid.

So... going back to the original subject: given the fact that there is such a thing as contraception, and that, therefore, all acts of sexual intercourse between blood relations do not necessarily lead to the birth of a hideous monster child with sixteen fingers and a single eye in the middle of its deformed forehead, is there any good reason why the government should be involved in what two consenting adults do in the bedroom?

I would agree about the consenting adults point. However, my fear is that lifting incest laws would make children vulnerable to predatory older relatives, under the auspices that it is 'acceptable behaviour'.

Similar objections could have been raised to the legalisation of other acts between consenting adults, including buggery or felatio, for example.

There is no reason why the rights of children should be affected by dropping a law against sex between consenting adults who happen to be related to each other. Child protection laws would still stay in place, surely?

I am not absolutely sure about the finer points of incest law, but would assume that it would be either a blanket (no pun intended) yes, it is allowed, or no it is not. And the danger is that, should it become the former, then children would be put at greater risk than they already are.

Indeed, even with child protection laws in place, children are sexually abused, and my fear is that in some instances a repeal of incest laws would make those perpetrators so inclined even more audacious.

Well I wouldn't be surprised if all of a sudden within the next few weeks or months, plenty of incest cases would come to the surface
and totally alter the innocent number of cases known per year ... stir the nest and you never know what it'll reveal.

But the sexual molestation of minors is already forbidden, so a blanket repeal of incest laws wouldn't have any effect upon that, just as the repeal of laws against buggery didn't mean that it suddenly became legal to bugger children.

Why so? The sexual molestation of children is equally illegal, whether perpetuated by the child's uncle, his scoutmaster or some random bloke in the street. I don't see how the repeal of incest laws would make any difference to that.

And I imagine that is because you are not 'that way inclined'. However, for those that are, it could be seen as something of a green light ...

Sixty years ago, buggery was considered a crime against nature: those who enjoyed anal sex were considered degenerate, incapable of self control, liable to abuse the vulnerable because they were sex crazed perverts who couldn't differentiate between a consenting adult and any other piece of meat.

Then the laws against buggery were repealed. Some people continued to prey upon the vulnerable, as they always had, but they continued to be subject to punishment for that, if caught, as they always had. Meanwhile, lots of other people who weren't interested in preying on the vulnerable were permitted to enjoy anal sex with other consenting adults, without fear of prosecution. Society did not collapse. Nothing really changed, except for those people who were no longer persecuted for a crime that wasn't really a crime at all.

I don't see why sexual relations between relations should be seen in any different light, as long as both parties are consenting adults.

The idea that someone who practices incest is automatically drawn toward the abuse of children is a somewhat outdated notion based on standards of morality that, as far as I can see, are not consistently applied at all.

Either consenting adults are free to do what they like with each other, or they are not. You can't go around saying that buggery is OK, but coprophilia is wrong, or that felatio is fine, but incest between adults with contraception isn't.

And where do we draw the line? Well, the line is drawn already, and that line lies at the age of consent.

Lost_inbroad - if my comment has caused you any offence, I apologise totally. Had visitors today, so sorry for delay in doing so. Perhaps sometimes the fact I am not a native English speaker means that my words are misunderstood, I'm not sure. Anyway, as DB said, I was not in any way whatsoever putting incest and homosexuality in the same 'category' at all - just merely saying that I did not 'understand' either, in as much as I've never been attracted to women or to my brothers/cousins in a sexual manner. There are people in CH and all over the world who will condemn or disrespect things they do not understand, which are 'different' - and I am very pleased to say that I am not one of them. Hope you will accept that- thank you.

Putting it like that, I understand. Thanks for clarifying.