There was a column the other day where Norman Woods, a representative of a church-based PAC tried to claim that there was nothing wrong with marrying off 16 year old girls, and it’s nothing sinister…
When you cast your vote this spring, you can have confidence that your senator stood up to outside activists and told the East and West coast elites to keep their ideas on marriage to themselves. As Marco Rubio once said: “The greatest tool to lift children and families from poverty isn’t a government spending program. It’s called marriage.”
Read Norman’s justification for it here.
Welcome to the 1950’s, where those little girls knew their place, and there were no coastal elites trying to prevent child trafficking. Fortunately for us, we’re 70 or so years past that.
In a well needed counterpoint, Democrat Representative Kadyn Wittman points out that the effort to stop child marriage is a bipartisan effort involving both Republicans and Democrats, faith leaders and child marriage survivors who are asking for a stop to a practice that has no place in modern society:
During testimony, Norman Woods argued that many fathers would prefer their 16-year-old daughters marry an “established” older man. That statement reveals exactly why many South Dakotans were alarmed by opposition to this bill.
and..
The argument about the age of consent is equally misleading. We regulate different rights and responsibilities at different ages all the time. A teenager may legally drive before they can vote. They may work before they can sign contracts. They may consent to some medical decisions before they can serve on a jury. The existence of an age-of-consent law does not automatically mean the state should permit minors to enter into marriage.
Many of the same lawmakers who argue teenagers are too immature to make health care decisions, vote or enter contracts suddenly insist they are mature enough to enter a lifelong legal marriage contract. That inconsistency deserves scrutiny.
and..
South Dakotans can disagree respectfully about a lot of issues. But reducing legitimate concerns about child protection to conspiracy theories about “outside activists” is unserious and insulting to the many South Dakotans, Republicans, Democrats, independents, faith leaders, survivor advocates and parents alike who supported this reform because they genuinely believe children should not be married in our state.
Currently, a 16 year old in South Dakota is old enough to be married to a 40 year old man, but not old enough to hire an attorney to get out of it when she discovers that there may be something wrong with this arrangement.
There’s something wrong here. And it needs to be fixed.
Norman is a creep and should be investigated.
Doesn’t John Sjaarda’s wife work for his organization as a keyboard warrior disguised as “field staff”?
SB159 placed a strict age-cap and prohibits a 16yr old from marrying a 40yr old.
C’mon guys, can you please just clap for this big win? I’m out here literally saving these young girls from a fate like mine (permanently bent at the knees of Dale Bartscher).
Has Mike Z weighed in on this? As I recall, he was a particularly passionate advocate for child marriage.
Yes, in the fb comments on Wittman’s DS response. Multiple times. In multiple rambling paragraphs, unsurprisingly.
Now I have to go check what the constitutional scholar has to say
The bizarre timing and completely out-of-left-field nature of this post suggests your candidate’s campaign is in serious trouble.
Woods posted it on May 26th. Pat replied to it in a timely manner. You want a one week waiting period or something?
I was actually reminder to respond after Wittman’s column which was e-mailed out by DS today. That, and that fact that 40 year olds who try to marry 16 year old girls should be in prison. The old decrepit one from the 1800’s, not the new facility they’re building.
Fatty Patty doesn’t like the laws so this heathen thinks it’s alright for him to judge others calling people pedo when he doesn’t understand the term.
Make that two. You can call me skinny bill if you keep sharing. I’d love to hear more about your experience and how long you’ve been in your circle. It really is age that gets you going, isn’t it
Age has nothing to do with it. Pedophilia is someone who has sexual relations or rapes a prepubescent child. 16 is not prepubescent argue all you want, since state inception SD has chosen that is the age of consent, still is today no matter what your opinion.
Correction, since 1989. Almost 4 decades
Call it what you want. Thinking 16 year olds should be married is just plain weird.
At a bare minimum, some hebephiles are about.
When is it ever a bad time to criticize people OK with child marriage?
Which Candidate?
They are really trying to turn one party into the pedo party. I don’t get this, but people keep supporting them…..?
Look to Texas. They are bringing in a pedo supporter. The white house has a few as well. Is this really that surprising to you? The rest of us sane Republicans have been saying this for years but what do we know, we are just a bunch of Rinos. lol
TDS
Yeah, Telephone and Data Systems Telecom Inc of Madison Wisconsin. Put THAT in your portfolio Cornholio.
988, Mental Health Hotline. Punch that number up in your cell phone, you need it nutjob.
Gents, let us all try to be more civil in our behavior.
TDS stopped being funny or relevant way back when it was still RDS.
Mental illness, i.e. TDS, has never been funny. And TDS is more relevant today than it was when mumblin-stumblin Joe was in his reign of incompetence.
A frail old man as president, you say!? Let’s give them the nuclear codes, ASAP!
Have you seen how frail and feeble minded Trump is lately? Sad. Both Trump and Biden shouldn’t be near the codes. At least Joe had a life long stutter that could be blamed for some of his feebleness. Can’t same the same for Trump. He’s just full on loosing it. Time for new blood! And please this time let’s have a sane Republican and not MAGA
You are right. TDS has never been funny and I’m glad it’s being studied more and now a broad term that applies to his ardent detractors and now with more research is most rabid supporters who look at his failed Presidency and still think he can do no wrong and is saving America as the world looks on in horror (the E.U.) or glee (like China and Xia’s comment of America’s CURRENT state of decline)
Wow! Would you just look at all the projection coming from these liberal dimwits. LOL! A nerve must have been hit..
We know which side is deranged lmao – it’s the Trump worshippers all day long.
Those folks are the ones truly with TDS. Ignore the obvious and proudly claim allegiance to a soon to be octogenarian who is quickly losing his mind. But hey, Merica – right? Let’s go golfing, Iran is getting boring.
More Projection.
Help me out here. You have said twice said projection. Can you explain what you mean by that? We all know that Biden was slipping at the end is your TDS that bad that you can’t see Trump is slipping too?
Yes, and fully 1/2 of children died before the age of ten, and of those that survived, life expectancy topped out at about 50.
WTF? How is that remotely applicable over 2000 years later? Ugh. Religious zealots.
I don’t see anybody noting that pedophilia aside, what happens when two teenagers get married and start having babies?
Who is financially obligated to support them if they are unable to support themselves? Their parents? Hell no.
WE are going to support them. Maybe one of the kids will decide to finish high school but there is no guarantee of that.
If a 16 year old girl is pregnant, marrying her off to her boyfriend relieves her parents of all financial responsibility. Under the ACA, I understand they may choose to keep her on their health insurance plan, but they don’t have to. They don’t have to pay for anything if they don’t want to. Once married, the kids become each other’s responsibility.
And her husband, who might be only a teenager himself, is not obligated to stay married to her. She could easily become a single mom at 17, have no high school diploma, and cannot sue his parents for support. The father of her child might be able to scrape up a few dollars of child support from his after-school job. We, the taxpayers, are going to pay for everything else.
What went on thousands of years ago is not as relevant as what appears in family records of 150 years ago. In those marriage records, the “best man” at the wedding is identified as the “surety” for the groom.
The “surety.” Let that sink in. In the days before life insurance and public assistance, a man could not get married without a “surety.”
Somebody was going to have the legal responsibility of supporting the family if the groom wasn’t able to do it. In order to get married, a man had to have a co-signer on the certificate.
Anyone else hear the Beverly Hillbillies banjos while reading this?