The groomers are at it again


Never trust a politician who wears a big-ass cowboy hat indoors. That means I’m not a fan of the Wyoming Republican party.

More sensible Wyoming politicians are proposing a bill that disallows marriage to 15 year old and younger children. The Republicans are agin’ it. Their reasoning is that, welp, kids can get pregnant.

The key issue, the analysis states, is that children ages 15 and younger still can get pregnant but could no longer get married legally if the law passes.

This denies the right of the teen’s baby to be raised in a stable home by his or her mother and father, the document says, citing the state Constitution’s promise of equal protection as a basis.

“Parents, by virtue of their right to conceive children, have the pre-political, i.e. God-given, responsibility to raise their own children,” the document continues. “This right and responsibility includes guiding their own maturing children into the estate of Holy Matrimony.”

So “god-given” biology means that they have a right to lock children into a legal and political relationship and commit them to life as a parent. If a 13 year old gets pregnant, do they have the maturity to guide their own maturing children?

Proponents of the law have a clear response.

“You don’t want a 30-year-old who impregnates a 12-year-old to be able to marry them and get around all of our other child protection laws,” he said. “I find that argument disingenuous.”

It apparently isn’t enough for the Republicans that the law still allows them to impregnate and marry 16 year olds.

Comments

  1. Reginald Selkirk says

    “Parents, by virtue of their right to conceive children, have the pre-political, i.e. God-given, responsibility to raise their own children,”

    Stories of parents not raising their children are as old as Romulus and Remus, and Adam and Eve.

  2. gijoel says

    This denies the right of the teen’s baby to be raised in a stable home by his or her mother and father, the document says

    Because two underage kids are going to be able to hold down jobs that pay well enough to support themselves and a child, much less have the emotional maturity to raise a child.

    Also, coming soon to a red state near you, forcing rape victims to marry their rapist.

  3. mordred says

    That reminds me of what my mother told me about the time when her “fooling around” with my father resulted in my older sibling being on the way.

    It seems my deeply Catholic grandmother told her daughter that she would raise the child together with her: “You don’t need that guy, we can do that!”

    My mother would have spared herself a lot of pain if she had listened to grandma instead of marrying “that guy”. Of course, as the second child I wouldn’t exist then…

  4. mordred says

    Adding to @3: My mother was an adult, though pretty young and honestly not capable of caring for children.

    Someone who thinks two children can raise a child of their own is either stupid or wilfully ignorant of basic reality. And someone who think a victim of child rape should marry their rapist is a disgusting pervert!

  5. StevoR says

    @ ^ mordred : Or a Repuglikkklan Konservative Kristian – but I repeat myself..ok, myself & yourself..

    “Parents, by virtue of their right to conceive children, have the pre-political, i.e. God-given,..

    Pre-political? Huh? Really? Even before the Genesis myth come sthe Lucifer vs God power struggle in heaven which would be, well, political kinda?

    Has there ever been a time when humans weren’t political in some form or degree even to Adam scape–goating Eve in their bulldust – to say nothing of Lilith?

  6. Die Anyway says

    I suspect that some of them don’t particularly think this is a great idea but they are superglued to their religion and this is the (il)logical outcome. Everything happens for a reason…. God’s reason. If God has ordained that this guy is going to get this girl pregnant, then who are we to stand in the way? It’s back to that bumper sticker philosophy: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Thoughtfulness not required.

  7. raven says

    I saw this last night and it set off all sorts of alarm bells and red flags. Xpost from Infinite thread.

    “Wyoming Republicans are criticizing a child marriage bill that seeks to raise the legal age to 18. It’s sponsored by one of their own party members.”

    Here are the real pedophiles in action. Republicans, in this case, the clown show in Wyoming.

    “The email continues that since minors are capable of bearing children before they are 16, marriage should be an open option “for the sake of those children.””

    Right. Because a young child who was raped and got pregnant should always marry her rapist. And children raising children is always a good idea.
    Cthulhu, these people are sick in the head.

    “For minors to whom God has given a child, states should allow for the best interest of that child,” another argument read.

    FFS, this pastor doesn’t even know how babies are made. When a 12 year old gets pregnant, I don’t think that god had anything to do with it.

    This is a fundie xian and especially a Mormon thing and there are a lot of Mormons in Wyoming. They claim they don’t have a problem with teen age pregnancy. Because if their kids get pregnant they force them to get married.
    They never say how stable those marriages are or how long they last. Probably not long.

  8. StevoR says

    @ ^ Die Anyway : “I suspect that some of them don’t particularly think..”

    Yes and their ideology very much discourages them thinking full stop. It tends to raise too many awkaward questions and issues that are “best” brushed under the carpet by their priests.

  9. raven says

    Between 70 and 80 percent

    Between 70 and 80 percent of child marriages end in divorce. That’s why UNICEF believes marriage under age 18 must be prohibited under all circumstances.Oct 29, 2018

    What You Need To Know About Child Marriage In The U.S. https://www.forbes.com › sites › unicefusa › 2018/10/29

    To state the obvious, 70-80% of child marriages end in divorce.
    The younger you get married, the more likely you are to get divorced.

    Children having children is never a good idea.

    Most of us have seen or heard of one or more of these cases.
    I knew a young adult in Utah who was one. Pregnant at 15, married at 16, second kid at 17. Father who was another teenager, went out one day and disappeared forever.
    This is what the Mormons do when their kids get pregnant, although she wasn’t Mormon, she was a fundie xian.

    She did eventually manage to get her life together but it took a decade or so.

    A lot of these child mothers are never going to get it together and struggle through life, failing to bring up their children in anything we would consider a survivable environment. A lot of those kids will end up with other relatives if they are lucky, and in the foster system if they aren’t.

  10. says

    “Parents, by virtue of their right to conceive children, have the pre-political, i.e. God-given, responsibility to raise their own children,” the document continues.

    That’s especially rich, coming from a party who are systematically stripping us of our right NOT to conceive children.

  11. says

    Never trust a politician who wears a big-ass cowboy hat indoors.

    They do that to hide their grotesque, dick-shaped heads.
    No one is fooled, though, as only dickheads wear cowboy hats.

  12. robro says

    This just in from the WaPo: “Teen girls ‘engulfed’ in violence and trauma, CDC finds”. This is chilling:

    Nearly 1 in 3 high school girls reported in 2021 that they seriously considered suicide — up nearly 60 percent from a decade ago — according to new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost 15 percent of teen girls said they were forced to have sex, an increase of 27 percent over two years and the first increase since the CDC began tracking it.

    And if the Bible-thumpers have their way, those teens who get pregnant will have to carry to term and perhaps marry their rapist. This is inhuman. This is nuts.

  13. Alan G. Humphrey says

    What happened to, “between one man and one woman.”, being the definition of marriage? And I’m sure there is a particular direction of the age gap that is not condoned by these dickheads (see note.)

    @ feralboy12 – #11
    They also wear those neckties to keep their foreskins tucked in, just so they can breathe easier.

    Note: I strive to keep my language free of sexist, misogynistic, racist, ableist, etc. language, but when it comes to the state of the world it is men’s fuckups all the way down. “Cocking it up” and “thinking with your dick’ do not have equivalents for women, and the world is much worse off from the actions of men letting their emotions and feelings drive their need to dominate others and assuage their inadequacies.

  14. mordred says

    @7:

    FFS, this pastor doesn’t even know how babies are made. When a 12 year old gets pregnant, I don’t think that god had anything to do with it.

    Well, I suppose he believes in that story about the virgin getting pregnant with the son of god. Sad enough he does confuse his fable with reality, but it seems his education on the topic ended with it.

  15. asclepias says

    Ah, yes. If it makes you feel any better, there are a lot of Republicans in this state who think this is ridiculous, too. Look up Dan Zwonitzer (I went to high school with him–he may be Republican, but he’s a good egg). As for Jonathan Lange (the pastor whom you referenced), he preaches for the Missouri Synod. Enough said.

  16. says

    There are a lot of very conservative, “family values” Christian Republicans who are big on homeschooling their kids and generally not letting them out into “the world” with its corrupting influences. Would they really be okay with repealing child-labor laws and herding kids en masse into factories?

    And what would all those working-class men who voted for Trump? Would they be okay with all those kids driving wages down?

  17. wzrd1 says

    It’s back to that bumper sticker philosophy: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Thoughtfulness not required.

    Yeah, dealt with them.
    I counter with, “God allowed her to be raped, it’s good, rapist believes it, that settles it. Put down your guns”.
    Just previous, talking about daughters, then moved on…
    Yeah, I’ve been known to manipulate sociopaths. Literally.
    Every terrorist I ever met was a sociopath and typically narcissistic as well, which is likely why they survived for us to briefly meet.
    And it’s a bit of a sore spot, given my recent departure from a homeless shelter run by religious types, with many commonalities with very real terrorists and other monsters.
    The only real difference between those monsters and myself is, I try not to be a monster, they simply try to hide being a monster. I only allowed the monster out to play to prevent harm to others, they let theirs out to acquire power. The big difference is, power acquisition is a continuous thing, thankfully it’s rare that some seek to cause real harm on others in a physical way.

  18. wzrd1 says

    @Raging Bee, yes and yes. They’d only require prayer groups around and within the factories, to reinforce the brainwashing.
    Something their seniormost misleadership learned from Pavlov and following human experimentation, brainwashing fades within a few months at best without continuous reinforcement.

    Brainwashing is simple, create a hostile environment, once the subject is just becoming suicidal, enforce desired behavior and reward the preferred behavior, rinse and repeat to build what is needed and reinforce once achieved or it’ll degrade.
    It’d take me a few days to find the full document chain that supports that hot mess, but it’s based and improved upon from Korean War and onward experiments in humans and other species. All, originating upon Pavlov’s accidental finding after a natural disaster.
    And reflected in military basic training in a pale way.
    At the end, when “GAS” was yelled, all jumped to grab their protective mask and don it. Not wonder, as I would’ve when entering training, “Nitrogen, oxygen, argon, CO2, gasoline, natural gas, WTF is the excitement about). But then, conditioned response was in a psych course I took in school some time before.
    And how conditioned response fails early, if not instantly, education being the inoculant.

  19. StevoR says

    @16. Raging Bee : ” And what would all those working-class men who voted for Trump? Would they be okay with all those kids driving wages down?”

    Yes. They already vote against their own intrests due to brainwashing, ignorance and hatred. Empowering the rich and their bosses at their own expense and sacrificing their own futures for their idols and to “own” those they dislike.

  20. StevoR says

    ^ Particularly if “those kids” are y’know those kids and not their kids and they get to further oppress them and express their bigotry and power over them.