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And doesn't God have stern words on the subject? Christie Smith, 37, a Nevada writer, says she felt guilty when she fell in love with her first cousin's son Mark. "I was trying so hard to convince myself not to have these feelings," she recalls, "that I went to the Bible looking for confirmation that it was wrong. And what I found was the exact opposite: support for cousin marriages." The patriarch Jacob married two of his first cousins, Rachel and Leah; Isaac and Rebekah were first cousins once removed. (The Roman Catholic Church has opposed cousin marriages for more than a millennium but gives dispensation to couples considered worthy.) Smith married Mark in 1999; this year she founded a group called CUDDLE--Cousins United to Defeat Discriminating Laws through Education.
As for Paul and Donna Gonzalez, they are doing fine. Their son, 9, and daughter, 8, are well adjusted and academically gifted. Still, the parents are protective of their family secret. (They declined to have their real names used for this story.) "When our kids started school here," says Donna, "I told them, 'You don't have to hide this from anyone. But you don't need to go advertising it.'"
The medical ban is lifted; the social stain may take longer to disappear.
--Reported by Amanda Bower and Andrea Dorfman/New York