I'm pretty sure the precedent of Lawrence v. Texas would make it legal, even if there are local/state ordinances against it, they would be highly challengable.

It doesnt feel right for me and many great people of being gay... but yeah this is something to think of.

Thing is as a human you use your heart and mind to asses things. the norm is that you can't really swallow it, and to be honest, thinking about your mom or sibling that way is just wrong, cause what you share is a much deeper relationship than that. Well it ain't that big an argument from my case, but put it along with the genetic problems and all that and it isnt the best way to go, is it?

Southern belle states of the US, European countries and around  the world. We all know what inbreeding in Kentucky, Utah, Idaho, Iowa, etc leads to. Well they are all believe in Incest is best. Josef Fritzl the incestuous murdering raping pedophile who had kids to his own daughter and kept her and the kids locked away for 30 years. Tom Green in  Utah had 60 odd kids to 7 girls from the same family, he raped and molested them and fathered kids.

Incest and child molestation there are direct links. 

The Egyptian pharaohs, European monarchy were all incestuous families, who kept power and wealth in the family. Sever birth defects from having children with brothers and sisters, cousins and parent with children. Keeping it in the family.

Define incest. There's a big difference between father/daughter or brother/sister sex versus first or second cousins.

Most definitions I found link the word incest to "too closely related to marry", which makes it a political term, really. There's a lot of grey area there.

When it comes to nuclear family relationships, the immediate blood relation, family dynamic, and other things come into play. In sexual relations such as these, there is usually a powerful figure dominating a weaker partner. That in itself leads to problems regardless of potential birth defects.

In most places in Europe and roughly half of America, even first cousins aren't considered incest by that definition, as it is legal to marry a first cousin and the birth defects (despite much ignorance surrounding the subject by "ewwwww, gross" intellectuals *sic*) are barely higher than normal and roughly on par with a woman in her late thirties having a child with someone completely unrelated to her.

By that definition, second cousins are entirely off the incest list.

So, again, it really depends on what you mean by "incest".

Fuck no. Incest with one's mother or sister is seriously wrong.

And the last thing we would want is an increased number of retarded kids in mental hospitals. 

I see someone is watching too much hentai!

By the way I think this topic is completely disgusting ... bluh just realised how this world is filled with really gross people ... now I am depressed are you happy ?

Just today at work a friend of mine told me this really sick story that came on the news the night before about this gravedigger that would dig up recently deceased girls and would ... you know ... gross ... so would you like to discuss this ?

It is not due to "genetic" reasons since it has was forbidden in most places much before people even knew what "genes" were. I also doubt they could see a pattern between some birth defects and siblins relations. You also have to remember incest is not that uncommon. It happened in Europe royalty not too long ago. The main reason, I think, was probably to avoid disputes over sex and marriage inside the same family/clan. By not allowing sex within the family you avoid disputes between father/son, brother/brother and manages to merge two families or clan by having 2 of each family have sex/marriege. And of course, in our society (European-American), Christianity included the whole "sin" and "god" thing in it.

Also, this whole "your son will come out retarded" is really exagerated. As someone already mentioned, the rates of birth problems aren't that much higher than normal rates. the chance of an older couple having a child and it having problems is higher than 2 young siblings.

So, It probably started to stop disputes within the own clan and encourage clan merging, then it became a sin to god just to avoid people to having sex at all (in a world where you can not have sex with your own family or anyone else besides your wife/husband, people have very little sex. And thus being miserable and increasing their desperation and the feeling of a need of god/religion), and then came capitalism which also prohibit it because of property. A daughter must be virgin to make sure your fortune will be going to someone you want (your legit daughter's son for example) and to also encourage the merging of 2 rich families.

What if you and your girlfriend were the last two humans on earth...

would it be wrong for your offspring to procreate? That's incest...

That they were, but they also brought in new blood from outside of their families from other regions and kingdoms.