Well folks, I was intending to make a post very soon but I did not expect it to be about something so awful as this. Some of you may be aware of the case of Steven and Katie Pladl, a father and daughter who were separated when Katie was put up for adoption as a baby. They were reunited in 2016 after finding each other on social media, and became lovers, Katie gave birth to a baby in September 2017. All sounds great doesn’t it? Well, it would have been had it not been for the interference of law enforcement and the media.
You see, they were found out and charged with incest by North Carolina, and then as per usual the media had a complete dipshit frenzy about it and went on what could only be described accurately as a witchhunt. Basically, the whole thing was to condemn this couple and treat them as nothing more than a commodity to sell newspapers.
These actions had a price, and a hefty one at that. You see, the pressure of the media attention and impending criminal case against them, for what ought not be a crime to begin with, must have tipped Steven over the edge. He killed Katies adoptive father, Katie, their child, and himself.
Now, please do not misunderstand me here, I in no way condone a murder-suicide. Steven obviously did a very bad thing here, BUT, we must understand the probable reasons WHY he did it. Can you just imagine the pressure of simultaneous legal and media harassment, not to mention the danger that would bring into ones life? Think about it, could this man walk down the street without somebody making comments about him being an ‘incest dad’ or some other such stuff? His face had been printed all over the media after all. Furthermore, his daughter, Katie, was prohibited from contacting him and was staying with her adoptive parents after she was released on bond pending trial. By extension, he could also not see the baby he had with her.
I think this would be enough to tip many people over the edge. So while we can and should condemn his actions as morally wrong, we can at least have some human empathy and understand why he did what he did. He was a man who could see no other way out, either for him or his daughter. It is obvious he was not thinking straight when he committed this crime, and it is equally obvious that it was a crime of passion.
The question is, after all this has happened, do people STILL think that harassing and persecuting people by using the law and media as weapons is the right way to handle unpopular relationships? What harm were they doing to anyone? Oh, that’s right, none at all. Had they have been left alone in peace, none of these people would be dead. The Pladls would have raised their child as a couple, and they’d have been happy. Instead, there are four funerals for the family to plan. What a tragic waste of human life this is. The authorities and the media have blood on their hands, they may not have pulled the trigger, but they forced the hand that did by inflicting so much emotional pain that he felt he had no other choice.
How many more people must suffer before these laws are changed? How long until the father/daughter couple across the road are just that, a couple deserving of equal courtesy and respect as everyone else? How many more people must DIE before these injustices will stop? Yes, DIE. Discrimination can be lethal, and this proves my point.
Consanguinamory 
Discrimination, ultimately, didn’t pull the trigger on three innocent people. Steven Pladl did.
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It’s true that he committed the crime, that isn’t in dispute. What I am trying to say is that discrimination can create very desperate situations, and that sometimes it can make some individuals literally go crazy and do something like this.
I stand why what I said, had they NOT have been persecuted by the media and the law, these four people would still be alive and well.
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Fighting against discrimination unfortunately is an uphill battle because of how cases like this are publicized. A person who is an easy target for bigotry will be pushed until they snap – then the awful reaction is “proof” they deserved discrimination in the first place. The bigots thrive on self-fulfilling prophecies.
It’s an unpopular position you take, and you deserve props for taking your stand. I can only hope others will have the patience to at least listen to your position seriously.
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Your assessment is spot on, that is EXACTLY what happens. I’m reasonably convinced that it’s what happened in this sorry case.
As for whether people will take my position seriously and at least give it some consideration. Some will, some won’t. I knew before I became a blogger on the issue that there will be nothing quick or easy about this battle for rights.
You see, people just don’t ordinarily get to hear about positive consensual relationships between relatives. That fact only contributes to prejudice because people only have biased information from which to draw their conclusions. So I don’t in any way think that people are being haters just for the sake of it, they just know no better. For this reason, I believe that education is going to take us 90% of the way. Some people will always hate, it’s a fact, but over time, they will lose. Logic and heart are on my side, and believe it or not so is time. Oppressed minority groups eventually get sick of their lot and begin to speak out….. just like me.
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I agree with you entirely. Remember in the Loving v Virginia case, the Lovings got the support of the then Attorney General and then the support of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Such support would have helped a lot. Perhaps we all should to write to the the ACLU and ask them why they didn’t help in this case and others similar to it, since love is love, and equality is equality etc. and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is for everyone, with no discrimination.
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Watching CBC news just now I was reminded of the Pladl tragedy. The news story was about babies being taken away from mothers who had allegedly entered the country illegally, and whose mothers were being detained in detention centers.
“Children, babies are being ripped away from their mothers’ arms and if that is not psychological torture, I don’t know what is!” said the protester.
Imagine the trauma caused to mother, daughter (and father) of the US storm trooper police, armed with tasers, shot guns, truncheons, jack boots, body cameras, the whole nine yards, turning up on your doorstep in the middle of the night, banging on the door, on knocking it down, then barging in and arresting your parents, (for adultery? suspicion of adult consensual consanguinamory while married in front of both sets of parents) in hand cuffs and taking you away from them in the big car with flashing red lights. Such early childhood traumas are renowned for causing permanent mental and psychological damage to small children. In the case of people who have already had much stress in their lives, possibly as children, such an additional traumatic experience could send them over the edge into a deep dissociative state. The effects of stress accumulate.
https://en.wikpedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology).
“A 2012 review article supports the hypothesis that current or recent trauma may affect an individual’s assessment of the more distant past, changing the experience of the past and resulting in dissociative states.”
Both Katie and her husband could have been driven into dissociative states by their arrest and detention, which as we know should not have occurred in the first place.
That Virginia and other states have such rotten Dark Ages statutes still on the books is to be deplored.
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