Tennessee Republican's fight against cousin marriage ban ends in massive defeat

The dream of legalized cousin marriage ended for one Tennessee state lawmaker on Thursday when his last-ditch bid to block the bill banning the practice went down in defeat.

Local news station WSMV reports that a bill making it illegal to marry your first cousin sailed through the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday, with just two members, both Republicans, voting to oppose the measure.

One of those members was Rep. Gino Bulso, who tried unsuccessfully to tack an amendment onto the bill that would have kept cousin marriage legal so long as the two cousins in question received a thumbs-up to marry from a genetic counselor who was licensed by the state board of medical examiners.

In a speech opposing the bill that was posted by the Tennessee Holler's Twitter account, Bulso makes the case that it doesn't seem right that cousins aren't allowed to marry when LGBTQ couples can.

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"I would like to point out that this bill illustrates that there are fundamental distinctions between heterosexual marriage and homosexual marriage," he said. "And the attempt here is being made to cover those distinctions up. Because we know that heterosexual marriage is fruitful! It can give rise to offspring! That is why it is fundamentally different from the same-sex marriage at issue in Obergefell," a reference to the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States.

He then went on to say that, if the concerns about cousin marriage are really about avoiding the increased risk of birth defects, then no one should object to having first cousins of the same sex get married.

The issue of cousin marriage appears to be particularly personal for Bulso, who admitted during a debate on the measure two weeks ago that his grandparents were first cousins who got married in 1924.