Bill To Outlaw Child Marriage In Kentucky Delayed By Conservative "Family" Group

I’ve often called this state Kenfucky, and that name is perfect for what’s happening there now.

A bill that would make child marriage … child marriage … illegal in Kentucky had been expected to receive a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, but the vote was delayed due to opposition by the conservative Family Foundation of Kentucky.

They don’t want to make it illegal to marry a child; seriously.

Republican state Senator, Julie Raque Adams, filed Senate Bill 48 which would prohibit anyone under the age of 17 from marrying, and only allow 17-year-olds to marry with a judge’s approval. Under the current Kentucky law, 16 and 17-year-olds can get married if they have their parents’ consent, and a girl of any age … any age … can marry if she is pregnant and is marrying the expectant father; a boy of any age … any age … can legally marry a woman if she is pregnant with his child.

Since Kentucky has the third-highest rate of child marriage in the country, with some 10,000 children married from 2000 to 2015, Adams felt compelled to write this new bill. And last week, she learned that her bill would not receive a committee vote because a conservative “family” group opposed it.

The Family Foundation of Kentucky argued that by not allowing children to marry, the bill would diminish “parental rights,” such as in the case of Donna Pollard, who at age sixteen was encouraged by her mother to marry an abusive 31-year-old man.

Adams hopes she and other legislators can get a compromise bill working, but worries that sometimes it’s the parents who are the problem, encouraging, even pushing, their children to marry adults:

“This is not kids marrying kids. This is kids marrying adults.”

Family Foundation spokesman Martin Cothran said his group was not opposed to the bill setting the minimum age for marriage at 17 but added that they are opposed to the court approval process for 17-year-olds, as “it takes away parental rights, in terms of parental consent, and gives it to the court. So, we have a big concern about that.”

Yeah, but when it’s the parents giving consent for 16- and 17-year-old children to marry, maybe a judge should step in, or a law placed on the books, to protect a child.

Is that so wrong?

InsiderLouisville