Troy Jackson, the latest un-democratically selected candidate being offered to the public by Maine Democrats, is the Great White Male Hope for the unprincipled party as it tries to take over the U.S. Senate “by any means necessary.” You will recall that he became a necessary means after much-heralded lying, Nazi woman-abuser Graham Platner was revealed to be…well, a lying, Nazi woman-abuser. Oopsie!
Jackson has little in his record or character to suggest fitness to serve as a U.S. Senator, but what conservative critics are focusing their fire on is this, as the New York Post reports:
“Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson is in a long-term relationship with his high school sweetheart — who is also his second cousin, according to a new report. Jackson, 58, and Lana Pelletier share two adult sons and the same great-grandparents, according to Thursday’s report by independent journalist Steve Robinson, who notes that such relationships are both legal under state law and not uncommon in the rural North Maine Woods region, near the Canadian border.While Jackson, a onetime logger and the former president of the Maine State Senate, has described Pelletier as his wife in the past, locals tell Robinson the couple has never been legally married.
“Jackson grew up in the village of Allagash (population 237 as of the 2020 census) and attended nearby Fort Kent High School with Pelletier.According to geneological records unearthed by Robinson, Jackson’s maternal grandmother — Albertine Pelletier O’Leary — and Pelletier’s paternal grandfather — Louis A. Pelletier Sr. — were siblings, making Jackson’s mother, Colleen McBreairty, and Pelletier’s father, Louis Jr., first cousins.Since 1985, Maine law has prohibited marriages to an individual’s parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, or uncles.”
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of this Weekend:
Is this a legitimate campaign issue?
Legal Insurrection concludes, “All Maine Democrats had to do after Platner dropped out was find a normal person to take his place. It’s amazing that such a simple task was a challenge.” The conservative site reposts many contemptuous tweets, such as conservative pundit Jim Treacher’s…
OUT: Third Reich
IN: Second cousins
and Stephen L. Miller’s “The plan? We convince them to drop an abusive Nazi and then replace him with someone married to his own cousin.”
My view? I find this the kind of right wing “gotcha!”pearl-clutching that loses conservatives credibility. It’s mainly (Mainely?) Ick rather than ethics. He didn’t marry his cousin, he sort-of married his second cousin, which isn’t illegal incest in Maine or as far as I can find, anywhere else. Franklin D. Roosevely married and had children with his distant cousin (you’ll notice that they had the same last names). Thomas Jefferson and John Adams married third cousins; John and Abigail’s line was eventually stuffed with geniuses and high achievers. I have a long-time friend (well, she used to be a friend until Trump Derangement caused her to cut me off, and I was a particularly good and generous friend…grrrrrr!) who chose her first cousin as her third husband, which my late wife found disgusting. They were past the children stage; I found it interesting but hardly scandalous.
Ethics Alarms 
This one really bothers me. Maybe it is because I look to the Catholic Church’s norms for guidance, and the Catholic Church does not prohibit second-cousin marriage. Heck, the Catholic Church can give dispensations for first cousins to marry, if there is a sufficiently pressing reason. In the US, there’s no prohibition on marrying second cousins, and most states even permit (perhaps with qualifications) first cousin marriages. This isn’t incest. This isn’t even a story. I am furious at conservatives who want to make this an argument. The only reason at all to find any problem with Jackson’s situation is that he never formally married his partner, but I’m just a stodgy, old-fashioned Catholic who thinks things like that still matter…
Bingo. If everything is an outrage, nothing is an outrage.
Obviously, political consultants consider “Ick” a point of potential political leverage.
Tangentially, this brings up one of my hobby horses:
If this guy were from Georgia or Tennessee or anywhere else in the South, he’d be called a redneck and a hillbilly and a cracker. But because he’s a northerner, he’s just a normal guy who’s from a rural area.
This is wrong and it’s why I’m convinced there needs to be a Northern equivalent for “redneck.” I’ve proposed, “moron of the North. This guy clearly qualifies (as does the guy with the mullet who’s unemployable and tools around in an unmuffled and rusted out 1978 Pontiac Firebird).
Come on, all you vastly superior Yankees. How about a little linguistic honesty?
Aside from genetic complications in offspring, I question the basis of general contempt for siblings and first cousins marrying. What is the basis?
I skeptically accept the current societal values of second cousins being as close as you should get and possibly ick. However, as a proponent of viewing things through an Adam and Eve lens, my understanding is that we all had to come from somewhere, even after the flood and its 6-8 person 3-4 couple genetic bottleneck.
As a campaign issue thou, after all of the “Trump woke up this morning again, can you believe it?” scandals, this seems similar to Democrats thinking they needed Platner’s authenticity to combat Trump’s. Republicans are now trying to Scandal as hard as the Democrats are trying to podcast?
I will say it’s pretty remarkable to think that someone in a common law marriage could be in the U.S. Senate. The country sure has changed in my lifetime. The Senate! The most exclusive club in the country!
Richard Mentor Johnson (October 17, 1780[a] – November 19, 1850) was a member of the House and Senate who served as the ninth vice president of the United States from 1837 to 1841 under President Martin Van Buren. He had a common law wife,
That was a frontier country. Any in the last hundred years?
Nah. Just him. That we know of.
Looking at Google, Maine no longer recognizes common law marriage. It many places, common law marriage created a legally binding union, dissolvable only by formal divorce proceedings. A legal common law marriage formed in one state would be recognized in every other state. Today, though, it is mostly a euphemism for having a long term relationship.
Before 1866, Kentucky sort of recognized common law marriage, likely as a reflection of many living many hours or days from the county seat, so getting a marriage license could be very difficult. (In 1866, a court definitely ruled the practice illegal).
Senator Johnson is a unique case though, because his wife was technically an African American slave. So his marriage was likely illegal, common law or otherwise.
Regarding first cousin marriages, inbreeding is itself a solid basis for rejecting the concept. Even if you don’t plan to have kids, “accidents” happen. There’s also the awkwardness at family reunions if the relationship doesn’t work out.
There are several types of marriage relationships that make sense in certain times and circumstances, but which have such drawbacks that they should at least be discouraged when those circumstances don’t apply. Polygamy made sense when you had closed communities of skewed gender demographics (too many females, not enough males). Cousin marriages made sense when you have a small pool to choose from overall. Teen weddings made sense in times when people were expected to take on adult responsibilities in their adolescent years, women had fewer options outside jumping from Daddy’s care to hubby’s care, and major infant mortality rates meant you needed to have more babies to increase the odds of some surviving to adulthood. None of these circumstances are factors in modern first-world countries. A two-person marriage, outside blood relatives, begun in adulthood, is the best prospect for relationship health and longevity, and raising a healthy next generation.
Fixed the Platner typo. For a second there, I thought you were talking about Mr. Peanut.
Why do we even bother with political parties if they can’t even pretend to have decent humans running? At this point lottery or by familial connections (which is, sadly, also happening) seems about as likely to bring up responsible individuals as the parties do. It’s time to make the Democrat and Republican parties part of the history books and to try again. A joke, the lot of them. Half of them are too elderly to be in office, but they get elected anyways because they were elected last time by the parties. It’s like tenure, but better. There is no review of competence or integrity.
Roosevelt doing it is a rationalization.
It’s definitely weird. Unethical? I don’t know. Maybe, leaning closer to yes.
I cannot defend the living arrangement on moral grounds, but Republicans need to wake up! it is the younger demographic vote at risk here, and younger people don’t care about adults living together, having children. For them it is a non-issue. What is at issue is the economy, housing, affordability. That should be the battle ground, not personal morals. Laying waste to a candidate’s character hasn’t really worked in a while, and this attack has so little substance, other than the ick factor.