It was one of those things that seemed so obvious, in spite of how heinous it might be.

On Thursday, the Senate voted 42-0 to provide gender neutrality in incest cases.

What does that mean? That if a man rapes his son, or a woman rapes her daughter, that person would also be charged with incest, along with rape or sodomy.

Sen. Preston Smith (R-Rome), who sponsored the bill, said the code on the books now is gender specific and totally disregards same-sex rape.

“Incest is an unfortunate situation,” Smith said. “And this does happen a lot and we were not able to prosecute them on incest. Now we can.”

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