The bill was caught in late-stage gridlock, and died after the deadline was reached with no consensus from the House.

You’d honestly expect something as controversial as incestuous cousin marriages to be illegal across the country. But apparently not – and efforts to make that the case in Florida somehow haven’t been successful.

As reported by The U.S. Sun, bill HB-733 would have banned incestuous marriage in the state. The bill read that no type of incestuous marriage would be permitted.

“A man may not marry any woman to who he is related by lineal consanguinity, nor his sister, nor his aunt, nor his niece. A woman may not marry any man to whom she is related by lineal consanguinity, nor her brother, nor her uncle, nor her nephew”. It then continues to disavow cousin marriage:

“A man may not marry any woman who is a lineal descendent of his grandparent. A woman may not marry any man who is a lineal descendent of her grandparent”.

The bill section concluded by saying that incestuous marriages submitted after July 1 would not be recognized.

But, in a surprising turn of events, the Florida state legislature didn’t end up passing the bill. According to their website, the bill died in the House, during the returning messages.

Representative Dean Black pushed the amendment into the bill, which was added without contention. But other parts of the bill were less favorable, leading to it dying.

Florida Isn’t the Only State to Allow Cousin Marriage

Surprisingly, Florida isn’t the only state that allows marriage between first cousins. There are 16 states that allow these types of incestuous marriages.

States such as New York and California still allow cousin marriage. The latest state to ban cousin marriage was Conneticut last year.

Representative Black said that he didn’t plan on dropping the issue. “I think we need to do the right thing for Floridians here”, he said. He plans to re-introduce the bill section next year.

It seems a pretty uncontroversial thing, to ban such marriages. And some are hoping that the 16 holdout states slowly whittle down over the next couple of years. It’s quite a dated practice. As one commentor wrote, “Guess they never heard of the fall of the Habsburg Dynasty in those states”.