i have a pretty mixed bag of friends…
…and typically i agree more with the liberal than the conservative ones. not all the time, but most of the time – and even more so since the trump era started.
the other day i heard something that struck me as odd. i heard there was a new bill being proposed in florida for something i didn’t realize was “a thing”. they were trying to establish a legal marrying age of eighteen.
this surprised me – i figured that was already set.
but it turns out there is NO legal marrying age in florida, it’s just that if the person is under eighteen the parents have to consent. and of course, once they do, then statutory (i.e. sex with a kid) is no longer a thing because it’s your spouse! they interviewed girls on the show that were married off as young as fourteen, but said state records show it happening as young as eleven.
fucking seriously? what grown-ass man would marry a fucking eleven year old? answer – one with praaaaahblems!
then came the part of the news story that blew my mind – if this bill in florida passes they will become the FIRST STATE IN THE FUCKING UNION to set a law that minors can’t be married. there is NO LEGAL AGE for marriage in any of the fifty states.
this is a problem i didn’t know we had!
what’s more fucked up, is some groups you may (or may not) expect are trying to stop these bills from passing. a california one got stuck in limbo because the ACLU said it was infringing on teenager’s rights. are you fucking serious? they interviewed the congressman that proposed the bill who said he figured it would be a one day affair and be passed without issue because it was one of those things he thought ALREADY was a law (just like i did) and that his colleagues would fall in line without issues.
but such was not the case.
instead, he found himself facing an uphill battle due to lobbyists trying to stick up for a thirteen year old’s right to marry an adult. oh no, we can’t take that away if the parents are okay with it…
…the fuck we can’t!
i’m sorry, but that’s a “right” that teenagers don’t need. how the fuck, in 2018, is this still a thing? we have failed as a country. if you heard about a fourteen year old girl marrying a thirty year old man in another country we’d gasp and swoon and talk about how backwards they were…but to find out it could happen in san diego or tampa bay or dallas? that’s a what the fuck moment!