Utah first cousins marry in Colorado — and want Utah to stop banning it, petition says
A pair of first cousins in Utah found a way to get around a state law barring them from marrying: They traveled to neighboring Colorado, where the union is legal, to become man and wife.
And after their marriage on Monday in Colorado, Angie Peang, 38, and Michael Lee, 37, are fighting for their home state to recognize the marriage as well, the New York Daily News reports.
“My first cousin and I have been in love with each other our whole lives but we are prohibited from marrying in the state of Utah where we live,” Peang wrote in an online petition to alter the state law. “We believe that the law is outdated and it needs to be changed so that we can socially legitimize our love.”
That petition had a goal of 1,000 signatures, and had more than 120 supporters. By Wednesday afternoon, the petition appeared to be down. The pair haven’t contacted state legislators, but said that it’s next on their list, the Daily News reports.
The marriage is in some ways a full circle moment, according to the couple: Lee said he asked Peang’s mother — his aunt — if he could marry her when he was a child, ABC4 reports.
“It was like second grade. I remember I stopped her mother, I stopped her and I said: ‘I’m going to marry Angie,’” Lee told the TV station as he sat next to his wife during an interview. “And she said: ‘No, I’m sorry, you can’t. But you can be friends.’ ”
The pair said they hadn’t been around each other in about a decade until this winter, when they rekindled their mutual childhood interest at their grandmother’s Christmas, CBS reports. Each is divorced, and Peang has three children from her previous marriage, according to the TV network.
“We felt a lot of love and missed each other over the years,” Peang said, according to CBS. “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.”
Not everyone in their family supports the relationship, including — at least initially — two of Peang’s daughters, CBS reports.
“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, according to CBS.
First cousins have 12.5 percent of their DNA in common, and their kids have a higher risk of birth defects, according to researchers. A 2013 study of 13,776 births found that 6.1 percent of kids whose parents were first cousins had birth defects, compared to 2.4 percent among babies who were not related. That’s about double the rate of birth defects, researchers said.
“I’m not really worried about it,” Peang said, according to the Daily News, telling the newspaper they would not adopt.
There are currently only certain cases where first cousins’ marriages are not considered “void” and “incestuous” under Utah state law. First cousins are allowed to marry in the state if both are over 65 years old, or when both are over 55 and a court finds that either is unable to reproduce.
“This is a lifelong friendship and we love each other,” Peang said, the Daily News reported. “I would say that this is something that I wouldn’t expect people to understand if they weren’t going through it themselves.”
