It was Never About the Children

Wyoming’s GOP rejected a bipartisan effort to end child marriage in the state while moving forward with anti-queer legislation.

This is not what child marriage typically looks like. I just needed a thumbnail. Source: Ben Waardenburg on Unsplash

With all the recent talk about groomers and protecting children, it comes as a surprise that few people talk about the USA’s child marriage problem. Some may not even know that this issue exists and are under the impression that child marriage is already illegal in this country. However, this is far from the case. Only six states (Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, and Minnesota) raised their minimum age to marry to 18 as of now.

As one of eight states that does not have a minimum age to marry, Wyoming legislators are introducing new regulations that would set 18 as the minimum age to get married. This bill has exceptions in place for 16- and 17-year-olds who are fully emancipated. The previous bill, which had no exceptions at all, was rejected in a 31–26 vote. Critics said that the previous bill infringed on parental rights. Democratic sponsor and congressman Charles Pelkey called these criticisms “bizarre” saying that any rights pertaining to marriage should stay between the married parties.

In addition to Pelkey, Republican Dan Zwonitzer sponsored a newer bill that has exceptions for 16- and…