First Cousins Petitioning State Of Utah In Effort To Get Married

First Cousins Petitioning State Of Utah In Effort To Get Married

Two first cousins are making the nation really nauseous after they went above and beyond to get married. First petitioning their home state of Utah, where marrying your first cousin is only legal at the age of 65+, Angela Peang wrote that she and cuzo Michael Lee have been in love their whole lives.

“We believe that the law is outdated and it needs to be changed so that we can socially legitimize our love,” she said.

Angela told CBSNews that she’s loved her cousin Michael since the second grade…

“We just always played a lot,” Peang remembered of her childhood interactions with Lee. “We went into a closet and we were kissing and dancing together. It just felt really natural.”

“He told my mom he was going to marry me,” Peang said. Her mom told Michael they couldn’t get married but they could be friends. Each time they saw each other at family functions the connection between them stayed strong. The cousins were caught kissing once by family members, Peang remembered. “We got in trouble,” she said. “After that we were kind of kept apart.”

According to the site, the cousins ended up marrying other people, but eventually divorced their spouses, and decided to be together once they reconnected at their grandmother’s house last Christmas.

“We felt a lot of love and missed each other over the years,” Peang said. “We decided that we were just going to be open with our love. It was really scary to think about how our family would react because they are conservative Mormons… we thought we might be excluded.”

She said they received mixed responses from their family members. Their parents feel the cousins’ love may “threaten the family’s identity,” Peang said. She said her youngest child was OK with it, but her two older daughters felt it was “wrong” and “weird.” “They started to come around eventually and when we told them we were getting married they were like, ‘OK, we’re cool [with it],'” Peang said.

After traveling to Colorado, where incest is apparently legal, Angela and Michael are now officially married…but they want their union recognized in Utah too.

“We hope to spread awareness about our situation, and we hope with this awareness and education we can shift people’s perspectives,” Lee said. “It really isn’t something they should be afraid of or against.”

Marriage between first cousins is legal in six states, Inside Edition reports, though (like Utah) some states impose age limits, etc.

This is America…