In the United States, the Wyoming Republican Party is attempting to thwart a bill that would propose raising the legal age for marriage to 16, arguing against the imposition of “arbitrary” restrictions that interfere with parental rights and religious freedom.
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As Newsweek explains, the bill proposes to bar residents of the state from marrying anyone under the age of 16 and require anyone under the age of 18 seeking marriage to obtain written consent from their parents under the eyes of a witness .
Currently, Wyoming is one of eight states in the country that has no minimum age for marriage, and it currently ranks in the top ten states in the country for child marriage, according to a 2021 study by American association Unchained, which opposes Child Marriage Struggles at Last, and quoted by Newsweek.
If the current Democratic opposition proposal finds favor with some Republican-majority elected officials, and this bill primarily affects an age group little affected by marriage — in Wyoming, 97% of child marriages involve girls aged 16-17 — several elected Conservatives preferred to oppose the project.
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The reasons for the Republican opposition
Using Wyoming Family Watch’s language, the state’s GOP, in a letter to voters, says the law is an attack on religious freedom in the state, arguing that prohibiting under-16s from marrying amounts to “the denying the most important foundations of marriage”. .
Efforts to raise the marriage age in Wyoming to 16 have stalled as the WY GOP is urging its constituents to oppose a minimum-age law, not because the law is weak, but because the law means their voters “fundamental rights” to marry a child. pic.twitter.com/mpQ0hBsjUZ
— ChudsOfTikTok (@ChudsOfTikTok) February 12, 2023
The letter adds that the law denies teenage parents the ability to stay together under one roof for any children they may have together, although there is nothing in the law text to prevent those children from having co-parenting.
Wyoming Republicans are trying to quash a bill (tabled by a Republican) to introduce a minimum age for marriage.
This is their rationale for not having a minimum age.
They are sick, sick people. pic.twitter.com/GGnzru2PLs
— Zafu Diamond (@ZafuDiamond) February 13, 2023
End loophole in pedophilia prosecution
However, this law is necessary for its defenders in the fight against pedophilia.
Indeed, these child marriages can be a way of avoiding criminal prosecution for pedophilia – especially if the young girl later becomes a mother – because of the issue of the child’s best interests.
Frady Reiss, founder of Unchained At Last, told Newsweek: “In the case of a girl who is raped and becomes pregnant, the answer for her is that we will not put the rapist in prison for the lawsuit, we will marry him to the girl he raped”.
Currently, the state is allowing marriage licenses for rapists to become a “free from prison” card, particularly if they are impregnating the victim, who is leaving children trapped in a legal quandary they cannot escape by entering into a marriage with a minor before they are old enough to take legal action. pic.twitter.com/iVvOFeh1Lz
— ChudsOfTikTok (@ChudsOfTikTok) February 12, 2023
To counter these arguments, the Republican Party letter states that “in the case of a minor to whom God has given a child, states should consider the best interests of that child.”
This question of the “interests of the child” is not alien to the American political debate. It was part of the language used in the abortion debates, and after the Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade.
Most recently, the issue of child marriage also made headlines in Tennessee, where the Republican majority wanted to abolish the legal age for marriage but backed down in the face of opposition from the state’s population.
A proposed law in Tennessee has been criticized for originally allowing child marriages. That part was changed, but the bill is now facing backlash for creating a specific type of marriage for heterosexual couples only: https://t.co/EhuBuzimMr
— VERIFY (@VerifyThis) April 8, 2022
According to the organization Unchained At Last, between 2000 and 2018, at least 60,000 child marriages in the United States took place at an age or with an age difference between spouses that should have been considered a sex crime.
– With information from Business Insider