Kentucky, state representative Nick Wilson inadvertently nearly made sex between first cousins no longer count as incest. This seems to be a case of a Republican politician making an improvement, but accidentally causing a lot of consternation when he messed it up.
On Tuesday Nick Wilson filed House Bill 269 to the Kentucky legislature. This was designed to amend the definition of incest. He inadvertently omitted ‘first cousins’ from the bill. The effect of this would have been to legalise sex between first cousins.
This was quickly picked up by legal pundits, and soon there were a large many headlines about the Republicans legalising first cousin incest in Kentucky. There were many unfortunate comments disparaging the good people of Kentucky.
Kentucky already has an incest statute in bill 530.02 of the penal code. This prohibits sex with “parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, great-grandparent, great-grandchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, brother, sister, first cousin, ancestor, or descendant”.
The nature of the sex in the current code refers to ‘sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse,. His bill aimed to include ‘sexual contact’ to broaden the scope. Wilson quickly refracted it, amended it to put first cousins back in and resubmitted it.
This seems to be the case of a Republican politician trying to genuinely improve things, but causing embarrassment when he messed it up.