West Virginia Republicans Block Child Marriage Ban
A West Virginia bill that would have raised the minimum age to secure a marriage license to 18 was blocked by Republicans in the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. As it stands, minors 16 and over may obtain a marriage license with parental consent, and children under the age of 16 must obtain an additional waiver from a judge.
The bill, which would have eliminated those exceptions and established 18 as the universal minimum age for marriage in the state, passed the West Virginia House of Delegates on March 1 in a landslide vote, with widespread support from Republicans.
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Kanawha County Republican Sen. Mike Stuart, an opponent of the bill who helped secure it’s 9-8 defeat in committee, justified his vote by stating that his own mother married at 16 and gave birth to him six months later. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” Stuart said.
“I want to make it very clear that no one spoke against the bill,” tweeted Kayla Young, the Democratic delegate who sponsored the legislation. “They just made the clearly pre-determined motions and killed the bill. No one admitted why they think children as young as infants should be legally allowed to be married off.
Senate Judiciary voted down HB3018, the bill to end Child Marriage in WV.
They first moved to table the bill without discussion, which failed, so they killed the bill instead.
For now, there will be no floor for the age of marriage in WV, endangering our kids. pic.twitter.com/KUG6KxtEHr— Kayla Young (@kaylayoungforwv) March 9, 2023
Seven states have banned underage exceptions for marriage licenses, including New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. Other states attempting to implement similar laws have been stymied by conservative lawmakers.
A comparatively soft proposal in Wyoming that would have raised the minimum age to 16 (with parental consent) sparked outrage from the state’s Republicans. The Wyoming Republican Party circulated an email that included an argument from lobbyists that since minors could get pregnant “marriage MUST remain open to them for the sake of those children.”
According to Unchained At Last, a nonprofit devoted to ending child marriage in the United States, 78 percent of marriages involving a minor take place between an underage girl and an adult man. While conservatives in West Virginia are happy to pass laws allowing guns on college campuses, and attempt to ban gender-affirming care on the grounds of protecting the state’s youth, they seem perfectly comfortable maintaining legal loopholes that allow children to enter binding marriage contracts with adults.
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