I don’t get why a such law took so long, but late is better than never.
Rep. Hardy Billington, R-Poplar Bluff, was among the few who spoke against the bill, arguing that barring pregnant teenagers from getting married would increase abortion rates.
“We all claim to be pro-life here in the body,” Billington said. “Now we’re going to vote on this bill where babies are going to die.”
Disgusting. What a pitiful excuse to enable the trafficking of children. I’m ashamed to live here. There’s no fucking guarantee that it would even increase abortion rate, this guy is a closeted pedophile looking out for his ilk.
Apparently he’s been spouting this bullshit for at least the past year. Not to mention he’s also a homophobe.
Sounds like an old guy from the 50s, who still clings to 50s social mores and stigmas, unaware that being a single mother isn’t the massive taboo he remembers it being.
Checks Hardy Billington’s Wikipedia page
Born 1952 or 1953 (age 71–72)
Aaaaaand there we have it. Not sure why his exact birthdate isn’t known. In fact the only notable thing on that page is about him expressing opposition to another child marriage bill that was proposed last year. Imagine having “strongly endorses child marriage” as the one and only legacy from your 70+ years of life. Gross.
It’s okay because there’s an R next to his name. It wouldn’t shock me if people were fully aware of his views. The abortion argument works for women here and the men here were sold at “child marriage.”
That’s a good take. The generational difference is real, that good old shotgun wedding from the past.
Most likely he has just never revealed his birthday to the public to Wikipedia is just guessing on the year.
And if it fails, you know whoever voted for it to not pass is a child predator. Hopefully there’s a list of people who voted “no” on it that gets leaked so people, especially parents, know who to cut contact with.
I mean, basically every Republican legislature or executive is a child predator. It’s like a prerequisite to join the party. Their ratings don’t drop when they’re exposed.
to think they project conspiracy theories saying the left is full of satanist pedos.
its kind of impressive how effective their brainwashing is. they got hardcore into the heads of their electorate.
Hopefully there’s a list of people who voted “no” on it that gets leaked
There is no need for leaks, it’s right in the article:
The final version of the bill passed the House by a vote of 129-14, with one member voting present. In the Senate, it passed by a vote of 32-1. Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, was the only vote against.
I get where you’re coming from but leaking a list of names and how they voted is a terrible thought.
Voting choices of individual citizens over political matters and selection of representatives? sure, 100% should always be anonymous to avoid discrimination and political violence.
But this are representatives on an assembly, making legislation. Their votes are, as they correctly should be, 100% always public. It’s the way constituencies can keep representatives accountable for their actions.
You’re right. I was thinking about private citizens but that’s not the situation on this one.
Two questions:
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What was the age before?
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What’s the lowest age permitted in all the States?
It was 16 but only with parental consent and only with a marriage partner 21 or younger.
16 with parental consent is quite common. Mississippi I think is 15. Some allow marriage younger than this (some have effectively no minimum age), but with the requirement for consent to also be sought through the courts.
In many it used to be something like with parental permission. Basically child trafficking enshrined in law.
Human trafficking was the foundation of our great nation. Hell, there’s still a lively Mail Order Bride market out of the States.
We can’t stop. We won’t stop.
I’ll be curious to see if this law survives contact with the courts. Perhaps we’ll even see destination weddings happening on the other side of the Arkansas border.
Dammit man, this hits close to home. I’m from Missouri and we used to talk shit on Arkansans all the time. Now I’ve lived in Arkansas for over a decade and can confirm… there are some sketchy parts. Lol, I need to escape.
Well, you can always come down and hang with me in Texas. nervous laughter
scrambling to hide from the Abbott gestapo patrol
I used to live in Louisiana. Never felt uncomfortable there but the few times I went into Mississippi or Alabama terrified me. You’re looking around at swamp land as far as the eye can see and realize that it would not be hard to hide a body.
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Studying the Child marriage in the United States Wikipedia page. Looking at the map legenda that says ‘red = 0’, thinking ‘surely that means it’s forbidden, right? right??’ What the fuck.
In California, for instance, the general marriage age is 18, but children may be married with parental consent and judicial approval with no minimum age limit.[53
The fact that so many states allow marriage at 16 is concerning. 🫤
uhhhh why wasnt this done in the 1800s???
Missouri wanted slavery in the 1800s at its conception.
https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/06/child-marriage-california/
Just gotta say, fuck the ACLU for both getting hate speech declared free speech and opposing a man on child marriage.
Removed by mod
This is really mean so I’m reporting it please talk to an adult about this, it’s not a good way to view other people
You guys should totally isolate on this continent of yours and don’t leave it at all.
Unfortunately, America doesn’t work as a project without endless territorial expansion. So we’re happy to close our borders, but we’re never going to stop demanding your tribute on pain of getting hit with our bombs.
Um, that’s great and everything, but it’s still too young. Your brain doesn’t finish developing until you’re 25, and the brain is the part of the body you’re concerned about when you’re making laws about when somebody should be able to make a big decision like getting married.
Technically you’re right, but there’s a whole load of things where you might be concerned about brain development. Enlisting, alcohol and tobacco consumption and taking out any sort of credit including student loans, comes to mind. I think actually you’ll agree with me that those should all be restricted to 25+.
Now where things get less clear is voting. Why should people under 25 be allowed to vote if we don’t consider them adult enough to make their own decisions in a lot of other cases? You could easily make the case that someone who can’t yet decide their own future, should not be able to decide on the future of the nation.
The impact of this would be that the group of voters that has the most reason to care about the future, might lose their voice entirely. Maybe it’s not a particularly active group, but they should be heard like anyone else.
This is one reason I don’t think it’s a great idea to start raising age minimums for things far above 18 based on the brain development argument.
I got married at 21, to a woman who was 30. Worst mistake of my life.
Robyn DeCradle
Baby steps, It’s Missouri.
This isn’t true. The study you are referring to was simply funded to that point in time and there has not been a repeat study or any sort of extended work on that front, that’s simply when the study stopped. The more likely explanation is that your brain never stops developing. Also, the concept of child and adult are constructs, at some point we are old enough to think and act on our own and there is no universal marker for that change in rationality and behavior or any bar for where that divide line is drawn. The idea that people shouldn’t be allowed to practice autonomy until 25 is just coddling and absurd.
Which study are you talking about? This is the mainstream view of neuroscientists.
Here’s what I got from MentalHealthDaily (sources at the bottom of the article):
Neuroscientists largely agree that the human brain hasn’t fully developed until (at least) the mid-20s.
It may seem logical that those aged 18 to 25 are completely mature, the brain still is maturing – specifically the area known as the “prefrontal cortex.” Changes occurring between ages 18 and 25 are essentially a continued process of brain development that started during puberty. When you’re 18, you’re roughly halfway through the entire stage of development. The prefrontal cortex doesn’t have nearly the functional capacity at age 18 as it does at 25.
This means that some people may have major struggles with impulsive decisions and planning behavior to reach a goal. The brain’s reward system tends to reach a high level of activation during puberty, then gradually drifts back to normal activation when a person reaches roughly the age of 25. Adults over the age of 25 tend to feel less sensitive to the influence of peer pressure and have a much easier time handling it.
The research didn’t continue after the participants reached the age of 25, the study was ended. We only have data up to that point, there hasn’t been a similar study done that kept the research and observations conducted past the age of 25. We only have information from one study that brought the gathered information to that point, we don’t know how the brain continues to develop from beyond that point. To me, that doesn’t translate to brain development stops at 25, it just means we only have collected data from one study that documented the first 25 years of brain development and activity of its research participants, we can’t say we know what the path of brain development is after that because we simply don’t have the data.
Okay, I’ve got the consensus of neuroscientists on the one side, and then I’ve got a rando on Lemmy who can’t even cite a study on the other. You gotta give me more to go on here.
Also, they aren’t saying that the brain stops changing at 25; they’re saying that it’s mature at 25. These are two different things. The rest of your body changes as you get older, so it would make sense that your brain does, too.
The important part is the prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed until your mid-20s. That’s why you make a lot of rash and stupid decisions when you’re 18-25.
I was a bit out of date, but thanks for the article, it was helpful. It’s a journalism piece interpreting multiple scientific studies, though, not a study. If you check the sources on the multiple actual studies they are referencing in it you will notice many of those studies observed that development and “maturity”, whatever that qualifies as, continues into your 30’s on average, the age of 25 is a pretty ambiguous marker for anything in the information provided from studies and there is no evidence that there is any kind of universal rate for everyone as far as what age your grey matter starts to decline in development, but the curve is well over 25. I still stand on my opinion that autonomy should be respected well before you’re 25.
Not to mention that marriage is a phase, they shouldn’t really be letting people get married. Do you even know what those wedding cakes are made of? And what if someone bullies you?
Anecdotally I am tending to agree but I have no scientific background. I feel like laws like this can be studied and then back by verification
Oh no, won’t someone thing of the children.
/s
“in a move that infuriates conservatives…”
The final version of the bill passed the House by a vote of 129-14, with one member voting present. In the Senate, it passed by a vote of 32-1. Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, was the only vote against.
What sort of garbage person do you have to be to vote against something like this?
A Republican
Check the hard drives of those 14
What sort of garbage person do you have to be to vote against something like this?
A pederast who wants to have sex with your underage daughter.
The next time someone makes fun of shithole countries remind them that hundreds of 12yo are married in the US every year. And I guess their little bodies are ready for motherhood because many of them produce a baby in 4 or 6 mo after the wedding.
many of them produce a baby in 4 or 6 mo after the wedding
Wow, they are just precocious in every way, aren’t they?
The usual shit that islamophobes would say is that ‘at least they aren’t 9’ even if many Islamic countries ban that shit and large age gaps in marriage (Egypt is one example) and many children marriages that do happen are between children. As in, an 11 year old girl is betrothed to a 14 year old boy (still not cool though). They also ignore that in many cases a man who does marry a little kid is often socially ostracized and treated like shit for doing that.
Western Chauvinism and Islamophobia have red-pilled so many promising minds into the intellectual sewer of bigotry.
And you can thank Zionists for being their main sponsors.
Yeah, I like listening to Sam Harris but goddamn does he rant against Islam a lot. I skip through a lot of his Israel takes, as he apparently thinks all Palestinians are Hamas.
How can anyone still take the New Atheist movement seriously after October 7?
I didn’t even know of that movement, although I do tend enjoy atheist rhetoric as of late. I more appreciate his insights with meditation and how our minds work.
It is a bunch of racists pretending to hate brown people for their religion. After October 7 that farce has fallen. They are simply racists.
Have they? Islam isn’t exactly pure and innocent in its own, though. Some of its reputation is rightfully earned through oppression and violence.
The biggest red piller is Muslim…
“Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12? I do. And guess what? They’re still married,” Moon said in response to questioning by Democratic state Representative Peter Merideth.
Child brides aren’t old enough to divorce their husbands.
Old enough to marry but too young to divorce. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard this week.
That’s the point - the power imbalance. Marry off young girls to men who can groom and control them. Daddy-husbands and child-wives. The Christian complementarian model sees women as essentially children anyway. Like Moon’s comment implies - if they marry you off at 12, you are never getting the independence to escape.
The new Pope’s from the US.
for anyone surprised at this, I learned from an Ask Lemmy thread that the age of sexual consent in well over half of the USA is 16 years old, in something like 30 states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent_in_the_United_States
up until that point I figured it was 18 across the US.
I was real wrong.
As bad as that is, a kid doesn’t have to be anywhere near the age of consent for their parents to marry them off to an old man (let’s be real, that’s what’s happening).
And since they aren’t old enough to be the one consenting to the marriage, they can’t file for divorce and if they try to escape, they are treated as run aways and returned to their abuser (again, let’s be real, that’s what’s happening).
Statuary rape is legal if the poor child’s parents consent. And they can do it in 36 US states. Including California. Do better.
Shower thought: maybe there should be an age / 2 + 7 law for marriage, with the minimum age of the youngest involved in the marriage being 18.
Then you don’t get any of that 50 yo people marrying 18 year olds anymore. Instead, those would have to look at 32 years.
Well, that’s just a rule of general not-being-a-creep. I think a better law is: No one can consent to marriage (or sex) for someone else, ever, including parents.
It seems pretty obvious: if you can’t sign a legally binding contract, you can’t sign a marriage contract.
Oh, I agree, but it’s depressing to know that there are people in the Republican Party that would probably violate that rule easily. Not that I ever trusted them, though.
The vast majority of American movie and tv just use 18 regardless, to avoid any legal issues
Which is why a lot of Americans, even ones living in states where it’s 16, think it is 18 in all states.
Not just the USA. Historically humans considered teens as young adults, granting them more rights and responsibility as they transition to adulthood, sometimes with parental consent.
It is a recent development that we look back thinking “no way should me or my friends have been able to marry or worse, arranged to be married at that age”
In many countries its 14. But that just means its legal for a 14 year old to fuck another 14 year old. Its still illegal for an adult to fuck a 14 year old.
So thats insufficient information usually, to just look at the lowest legal age of consent.
In the UK and many other developed countries also. Seems quite standard. America likes to infantise the youth so it’ll be 25 before long.
“Infantise” while trying to shut down child marriages.
Fuck off.
Swearing won’t make your argument stronger. It’s just rude.
My comment wasn’t in relation to child marriages. That is wrong and illegal in most countries. The debate is because an American doesn’t really understand the context in other countries.
Here in the UK, age of consent is 16. Most have already been at stuff at 14, 15 etc. All raising age does is punish 17 year olds getting busy. A 16 and 17 year old had sex in Dubai, both from the UK where it is legal. He got locked up when her mum reported it. It’ll just create criminal records for young folk and you know it’ll not be enforced with white youths. Just another way to swell the prison population.
US are weirdly prudish when it comes to sex yet award ceremonies and the young are watching the celebs walk in in see through clothes. Truly baffling to outside observers.
And also Americans are prudish if Jane Jackson shows a tit but are happy exposing children to militarism so they can die twenty years later.
Pretty progressive I guess, no abortion before birth but instead it’s at the 76th trimester.
I think they were refering to the drinking age. It’s beyond fucking stupid you need to be 21 to drink in the US.
That’s our own fault though. The number 1 demographic causing drunk driving accidents was people 18 to 21. Making it so that they couldn’t drink in bars made them more likely to stay home to drink.
It makes more sense (in my opinion) to require you to be 21 to drive a car. Cars are fucking death traps.
Not really, brain development doesn’t stop until ~24. Alcohol inhibits that. I mean, I don’t think you should wait til 24 to drink but there is reasoning there, even if that’s not their reasoning. But if I was legally allowed to drink at 18, (I did, but not legally) alcohol likely would have been much more problematic for me, personally.
There is also the fact that when getting alcohol illegally, you make deals with shady people like anything of that nature. I dunno, there’s lots of arguments to give here but none that would decisively say which is right and wrong.
Are you an adult who can make their own decisions or not? Join the military and kill people, adult. Take on hundreds of thousands in debt, adult. Drink? No no no, child.
Oh I totally agree. The system is fucked. I was just saying that me personally, as an 18 year old kid, had worse impulse control than me personally at 21. I’m not saying this is the case for everyone, im a dopamine chaser that doesn’t get it elsewhere. I get that. I was just stating that I had alcohol problems at 21-22. If I had easier access at an earlier age without having to deal witha shady person? I’m just saying 19 year old me with too much money couldn’t handle that. That’s it, I’m not saying 21 is justified when you can go to war 3 years earlier. All I’m saying is that my old alcohol problem would have been way more problematic had it been easier to access at a younger age.
I don’t understand the down votes for telling my experience and how it would be different in an alternate world.
I dunno, I’m neurodivergent and was awkward in my youth. Didn’t know how to cope, so I found others that didn’t know how to connect with society. Even in the late 90s/early 00s, you just didn’t check for that sort of thing unless it was really apparent at the time. So a lot of us went undiagnosed, unhelped, and just kind of on our own to figure out life because our parents didn’t raise us. Nobody did. But there was drugs and alcohol
I’m just saying putting something off that can be addicting is a good thing. Be it high fructose corn syrup, nicotine, alcohol, there’s even new studies saying teens should stave off weed a bit longer.
Impulse control or not, you are an adult that can make adult decisions. Pushing this back and pushing this back does not help anyone, it just creates this forever-child syndrome. Managers wonder why people are showing up to job interviews with their parents, and it’s because we keep pushing back the decision making and independence. Right now being 18-21 is treated like you’re not an adult, so people just act stupid because that’s what’s expected of them.
“uplifting” news
c/orphancrushingmachine
What century is this again?
Oh it gets worse. This change is just the most recent in a series of states updating their laws since 2017. Because a study was released that showed almost 200,000 child marriages in the US between 2000 and 2015. And over the next three years years another ~100,000 happened.
And while it’s important to remember that a 17 year old marrying an 18 year old is technically child marriage, and 16-17 year olds girls who marying men who were over 18 or older but less than 29 is over 90% of those statistics. There were dozens between girls who were 12-14 and men who were 40+, some were 60+. And that it is still legal in several states if certain criteria are met.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States
The USA is a Christian fundamentalist oligarchic theocratic surveillance police state.
