Tennessee wants to eliminate age of consent for marriage

[gustava]

https://www.wkrn.com/news/tennessee-politics/a-get-out-of-jail-free-card-gop-bill-would-eliminate-age-requirements-for-marriages-in-tennessee/

 

The bill's sponsor (old white man) says, "“So, all this bill does is give an alternative form of marriage for those pastors and other individuals who have a conscientious objection to the current pathway to marriage in our law.”

PASTORS that want to be able to marry off virginal girls ......    Which of our favorite fundies live in Tennessee???

This dude is seriously slimy.

And from Wonkette:  https://www.wonkette.com/tennessee-child-marriage-tom-leatherwood

Edited April 5, 2022 by gustava

[closetcagebaby]

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Getting any form of minimum age laws passed is surprisingly hard. 44 states allow underage marriage and nine of those have no lower age limit. 
 

Also, marriages involving children are unsurprisingly prone to abuse, yet the victims often times cannot access domestic violence resources because they are minors. 

[Howl]

There is a underlying but blatant forced marriage element here as well.  What a bunch of obnoxious fucks. 

[anjulibai]

Reading the article, it seems the intent of the bill is to create a form of marriage that is only for straight people. It's poorly written because the guy behind doesn't care about getting it passed, not really, but about saying he stands up for traditional marriage. 

[EmiSue]

All the problems in the US and in Tennessee in particular, and you're in a position to do something meaningful about them, but instead you do...this😔 No. Words. 

[Sarcastically spinster]

I'm just waiting for massive sex trafficking scandals involving fundamentalist groups in Tennessee to break.  It's a hotbed of crazy for some reason (see Remnant Fellowship, the Botkins....)

[closetcagebaby]

The minimum age is 17 now! Which feels fully reasonable to me, even though I personally believe it should be 18. Ridiculous. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

16 minutes ago, closetcagebaby said:

The minimum age is 17 now! Which feels fully reasonable to me, even though I personally believe it should be 18. Ridiculous. 

The ages for marriage have slowly been going up in states across the country in the last decade. There has been a push in many states to raise the age for marriage. I personally wish every single state allowed no marriage until 18 no matter what. Because some parents just take their kid to another state with lower age requirements in order to get them married.  But I’m grateful there’s been slow progress. 

[closetcagebaby]

1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

The ages for marriage have slowly been going up in states across the country in the last decade. There has been a push in many states to raise the age for marriage. I personally wish every single state allowed no marriage until 18 no matter what. Because some parents just take their kid to another state with lower age requirements in order to get them married.  But I’m grateful there’s been slow progress. 

I wish there wasn’t so much opposition. Idaho voted down a bill that would have raised the lower limit to only 16 just two years ago. It doesn’t feel like a ton of progress to me. 

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, Sarcastically spinster said:

I'm just waiting for massive sex trafficking scandals involving fundamentalist groups in Tennessee to break.  It's a hotbed of crazy for some reason (see Remnant Fellowship, the Botkins....)

And then there are the Pearls and the Above Rubies asshats.

[JermajestyDuggar]

35 minutes ago, closetcagebaby said:

I wish there wasn’t so much opposition. Idaho voted down a bill that would have raised the lower limit to only 16 just two years ago. It doesn’t feel like a ton of progress to me. 

Some states are completely ass backwards about it. While others are making progress. It’s sad how our states have become little countries with completely different laws. Example: in June 2021 Rhode Island banned all marriage under 18. That’s wonderful. But RI is small and a person could easily drive to another state to get married underage. The 6 states that don’t allow marriage under 18 are Delaware, RI, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and New Jersey. As you can see, most of these states are blue states. The red states like Idaho will probably put up the biggest fights to raise the age to 18.

Edited April 5, 2022 by JermajestyDuggar

[JermajestyDuggar]

This site has a lot of quick child marriage facts:

https://www.unchainedatlast.org/child-marriage-shocking-statistics/

[Bluebirdbluebell]

7 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

And then there are the Pearls and the Above Rubies asshats.

Don't forget the Bates.

[marmalade]

1 hour ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

Don't forget the Bates.

Pretty sure the Botkins are there as well.

[gustava]

6 hours ago, marmalade said:

Pretty sure the Botkins are there as well.

Botkinettes certainly don't need the law;  they are definitely beyond the age of consent!

[Alisamer]

I don't get why anyone would think allowing children to marry is a good idea.

Well, I suspect a lot of it is adult men looking for pliant virginal servants/slaves. But as a society, I don't see why anyone would think someone too young to vote should be allowed to get married. And I also find it ironic that it's mostly the very same people who were all "oooh, but allowing gay marriage will open the door for child marriage, marrying pets, etc." who are also "of course a 14 year old should be able to get married if her parents say it's OK". 

There's no harm in waiting to get married, and a lot of potential harm in rushing into marriage very young. Which is largely a feature for some people pushing children into marriage.

[Pecansforeveryone]

Especially as these very same people lose their minds about 14 year old having sex with other 14 year olds. While not ideal for me, there is at least not a power imbalance that underage marriage introduces. Occasionally I do see two 16 or 17 year olds getting married. However, I far more often see the older partner being at least a decade older than said 16 year old. That is wrong 100% of the time to me. Full stop, no exception. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

29 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

I don't get why anyone would think allowing children to marry is a good idea.

Well, I suspect a lot of it is adult men looking for pliant virginal servants/slaves. But as a society, I don't see why anyone would think someone too young to vote should be allowed to get married. And I also find it ironic that it's mostly the very same people who were all "oooh, but allowing gay marriage will open the door for child marriage, marrying pets, etc." who are also "of course a 14 year old should be able to get married if her parents say it's OK". 

There's no harm in waiting to get married, and a lot of potential harm in rushing into marriage very young. Which is largely a feature for some people pushing children into marriage.

What I’ve found, is that there is often a religious aspect to it. Almost all of them are Christian, Jewish or Muslim and they are marrying an underage daughter to an adult man. Whether it’s because she’s pregnant, she’s already had sex with him, or they just think it will keep their teen daughter “in line” it’s usually about religion/culture and what they think is best based on that. 

[Alisamer]

8 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

What I’ve found, is that there is often a religious aspect to it. Almost all of them are Christian, Jewish or Muslim and they are marrying an underage daughter to an adult man. Whether it’s because she’s pregnant, she’s already had sex with him, or they just think it will keep their teen daughter “in line” it’s usually about religion/culture and what they think is best based on that. 

I do see that as a frequent cause, but... I just feel like it's not a good enough excuse, IMO. Like this is 2022, when we know better we do better. I feel like for the most part, well educated people are less likely to marry off a teen daughter, no matter their religious or cultural traditions. So it seems like a failure of education to me in that way, and is the sort of thing that perpetuates itself. 

I feel like this is a situation where laws SHOULD protect people from themselves (or from their parents, in this case). Probably not with punishment, but with education. And it's also on the leaders of religious and cultural groups to get with the program as well, and speak out for the safety of children. 

Like I don't care that Mary was likely a pregnant teen bride. It's 2022, lifespans are longer, medical care is better, education is more available, there are safe and effective ways to prevent pregnancy and literally no benefit to marrying before legal adulthood. And if they are marrying a daughter off to keep her "in line" then they need to look hard at themselves because it's not HER who is the problem. 

I do get that this can be a thorny problem with religious, cultural, and even racial aspects that need to be handled carefully. But it seems to me like saying "marriage is for adults" and making that law is just common sense. Some religious and cultural groups will of course, disapprove, but culture changes over time and the safety of children comes before tradition IMO. That's why church and state are separate in the US. 

If people want to live like it's ancient times they can do that within the law, IMO. What difference does it make if a girl marries at 18 instead of 16 or 17? There are only potential benefits to her. And if continuing a religion requires marrying children and tying them down with their own children before they are old enough to think to ask questions, well... maybe that needs to be questioned, itself. If people are marrying off children to reduce the number of mouths they have to feed, that seems like services and education are necessary there to help stop that problem from perpetuating. 

I just can't think of a reason for child marriage that doesn't smack of under-education, lack of thinking, patriarchy, and just plain victimizing of the children involved. No matter the cultural or religious excuses given to try and explain it. Adult men benefit, children suffer.

[Hane]

I’ll never forget this brave young woman who tackled the New Hampshire state legislature in hopes of having the marriage age raised to 18. She was scorned by Republicans who, ironically, didn’t like the idea of a “child” challenging the practice of child marriage.

Putting aside the very real problem of girls being sexually exploited by adult men in these situations: A big factor in child marriage is that many people still think that having premarital sex is the absolute worst thing a girl can do, and that “marrying her off” is the solution. Add that to the many cases in which judges expedite marriages for pregnant teenagers, as if marriage alone would solve all the girl’s problems.

[Cults-r-us]

22 hours ago, anjulibai said:

Reading the article, it seems the intent of the bill is to create a form of marriage that is only for straight people. It's poorly written because the guy behind doesn't care about getting it passed, not really, but about saying he stands up for traditional marriage. 

The point is to get their own P-in-V marriage unsullied by da gayz. The absence of an age limit was, I believe, due to the bill's poor writing as was brought up as people began reviewing it.

[gustava]

Tennessee now has a bill that would allow invermectin to be sold over the counter without a prescription.  State has gone full on cray cray.

[Mrs Ms]

The only time underage marriage is beneficial for the girl (because let us face it, it won’t be 38yo women marrying 15yo boys in any numbers) is if it’s teen sweethearts and one of them is terminally ill. If marriage is important to them, I have zero issue with it. 

[Mama Mia]

What I’ve read is that the purpose of the law is to have a common law option that is specifically only one man-one woman. The way it’s worded supposedly won’t allow minors to marry, or polygamy, or anything else currently against the law in civil marriage. With the exception of specifying one man and one woman - which is the entire point- to get someone to take it to court on the basis it violates federal law,  so it can work it’s way up to the Supremes, so they can overturn the 2014 ruling making same sex marriage legal. It’s much like many of the more extreme abortion laws - the point is to get settled cases before a conservative Supreme Court and get laws they don’t like overturned. 

[CarrotCake]

On 4/6/2022 at 4:07 PM, Pecansforeveryone said:

Occasionally I do see two 16 or 17 year olds getting married.

I think this mainly happens when they have an unplanned pregnancy. In which case I can imagine it could be benifical that it makes it more likely that the father stays involved or at least takes some responsibility. But I don't know how these laws are in the US (Tennesee), it seems like that could also be accomplished by a good decleration of paternity.