Sadly, Love Did Not Win this time:

A woman and her daughter are facing incest charges after authorities learned the pair were legally married in Oklahoma this year, and that the mother had married her son a few years earlier.

The motivation behind the March marriage was unclear Wednesday, when 43-year-old Patricia Ann Spann and her daughter, 25-year-old Misty Velvet Dawn Spann, made initial appearances in Stephens County district court. Under Oklahoma law, marrying a close relative is considered incest whether or not a sexual relationship exists.

Neither woman had an attorney listed in court documents. No publicly listed phone number could be found for their home in Duncan, about 80 miles southwest of Oklahoma City.

The story goes on to say that diversity-celebrating Patricia Ann Spann was previously married to her son.

A writer for a liberal website in Oklahoma City doesn’t see what the big deal is:

Listen, incest isn’t my thing. Like most people, I think it’s gross and disgusting. I’ve never forgiven the Lannisters for it, and I’m very worried Jon Snow and Sansa hook up in Season 7. That being said, I also like to be consistent on issues. If two legal aged-adults love each other and want to get married, why can’t they? As long as they don’t hurt anyone else, who really cares? It’s their life, their body and their eyes that are going to see all the strange looks the next time they share a banana split at Braum’s. Plus, as Gandhi once said, “Incest is better than no cest.”

As they say in Jack Chick Comics, “Haw, haw, haw!” But the Oklahoma reader who sent this item to me makes a good point:

I don’t see this being another watershed moment in the Sexual Revolution. After all, it’s poor women in Oklahoma, not tortured Los Angeles celebrities or distinguished East Coast college students.

That being said, it’s been on my mind ever since because the two prime arguments against incest are inbreeding and taboo. The former doesn’t apply in this case, while the latter fails the “just because it’s gross doesn’t mean it’s wrong” test. I guess you could argue that incest should be barred on the grounds that sexual tension is destructive to the family unit. But consenting adults’ rights to sexual identity and expression are nearly unassailable anymore.

Again, this isn’t going down in history alongside sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. These women will not be on magazine covers or award shows. I’ll even go out on a limb and uncharitably assume drugs, childhood traumas, and/or mental illness is at play. But this is still another straw on the camel’s back.

If only these redneck perverts were celebrities or on the gender studies faculty at Smith, just think of the plaudits.