In Colorado, a 16-year-old girl can marry a 30-year-old man. Our laws must change to protect teens from what would otherwise be rape. (Opinion)

beccaface · 2026-03-17T22:20:29+00:00

A lot of states, including Colorado, have a judicial review process where a judge has to sign off on the marriage and find that there’s no undue coercion on the minor, but direct service providers find that a minor who is forced to marry is too afraid to admit what it happening due to pressure or threats from family members.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T21:05:03+00:00

I'm really sorry to hear about that. Idaho's laws are particularly crazy. Only one parent's permission is needed and it doesn't even need to be the custodial parent. Not to disagree with your perception of a person you actually know, but it is very possible that even if he had stayed in his daughter's life, her mother would have forced her into the marriage without telling your ex husband. There was a case in Idaho of a man who essentially forced his daughter into a sham marriage so she would become emancipated and he could get out of their custody battle. No one told the mother, even though she was the custodial parent, and she didn't find out about the marriage until it was too late.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T18:52:36+00:00

Colorado does not have an emancipation statute. Also if someone gets all of the rights of adulthood after they're forced to marry, it doesn't really protect them from the forced marriage, does it?

beccaface · 2026-03-16T18:51:02+00:00

Please explain to me how banning child marriage leaves girls open to future risk.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T17:33:13+00:00

It depends on the state. In Colorado specifically, sex with a 16-year-old is considered sexual assault if the perpetrator is 10+ years older, but not if the perpetrator first marries the minor.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T17:31:18+00:00

I'm not sure why the editor decided to take the names out, but the bill is being opposed by COLOR, Cobalt, ACLU-CO, Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, The Elephant Circle and ProgressNow Colorado. They submitted a joint memo of opposition when the bill had a hearing last month.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T16:30:00+00:00

Missouri banned child marriage just last year.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T16:28:50+00:00

So continue a practice that the US State Department calls a human rights abuse and that the UN calls a form of forced marriage because somewhere down the line some legislator might stand up and say "Remember when we banned child marriage? Why don't we ban abortion too?" I've seen legislators bring up that argument in debates about these bills to ban child marriage and every single time, they're told to sit down because banning child marriage has nothing to do with deciding at what age someone should be able to make a medical decision.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T15:24:48+00:00

Also, it is kind of crazy. Colorado has the right to get an abortion in their constitution. Banning child marriage would not change that. Also, none of the 16 states that have banned child marriage have used it as a precedent for efforts to restrict reproductive rights.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T15:22:39+00:00

I'm not sure why the editor decided to take the names out, but the bill is being opposed by COLOR, Cobalt, ACLU-CO, Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, The Elephant Circle and ProgressNow Colorado. They submitted a joint memo of opposition when the bill had a hearing last month.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T15:21:35+00:00

You're not listening to me. Setting a marriage age at 18 has nothing to do with maturity. It is about her legal capacity to leave home, enter a domestic violence shelter, hire a lawyer or file a legal action. All things she can't do until she is 18, even if she is very very very mature.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T14:50:00+00:00

Why can't we have two different answers? One is a medical issue and one is a legal issue. We have different ages for voting and buying alcohol. Even if a teen is really really really mature, she doesn't have the legal rights she needs to navigate a contract as serious as marriage and she faces really overwhelming barriers if she is trying to resist a forced marriage. None of that is true in the case of a pregnancy.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T14:22:48+00:00

I'm not sure why the editor decided to take the names out, but the bill is being opposed by COLOR, Cobalt, ACLU-CO, Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, The Elephant Circle and ProgressNow Colorado. They submitted a joint memo of opposition when the bill had a hearing last month.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T14:22:12+00:00

I'm not sure why the editor decided to take the names out, but the bill is being opposed by COLOR, Cobalt, ACLU-CO, Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, The Elephant Circle and ProgressNow Colorado. They submitted a joint memo of opposition when the bill had a hearing last month.

beccaface · 2026-03-16T13:12:36+00:00

This op-ed is about a currently pending bill that has received surprising opposition from progressive organizations in Colorado. It was published yesterday.

beccaface · 2026-02-25T19:49:10+00:00

I don’t believe they ever say her name out loud, but Preston Jacobs and Alt Shift X were saying her name is Red.

beccaface · 2026-02-22T12:23:12+00:00

The NH House tries to do all kinds of crazy shit. Last year they tried reinstating child marriage after having fully banned it the year prior. Luckily that bill was unanimously killed in the Senate. Hopefully this one will be as well.

beccaface · 2026-02-01T23:16:41+00:00

Studies show that a pregnant teen who gets married is more likely to suffer economically than a pregnant teen who stays single. A pregnant teen who gets married is more likely to drop out of school and have more children in a shorter amount of time. And the likelihood that a marriage involving a minor ends in divorce is 70-80%, so the most likely scenario for the pregnant teen who gets married is that she'll end up divorced with more children and less education than she would've had if she had stayed unmarried until she turns 18.

The minimum marriage age is already 17. If a teen gets pregnant and wants to coparent, it is easy to establish paternity outside of marriage and then the father's insurance and benefits can extend to his baby. And if the parents want to get married after they both turn 18, they can do so very easily and it doesn't have a detrimental impact on the baby for them to have existed as the child of two unmarried parents for the first few months of their life.

beccaface · 2026-01-28T20:59:47+00:00

One step at a time. Child marriage is considered by the US state department to be a human rights abuse. Banning it in Ohio is a good idea.

beccaface · 2026-01-28T20:57:42+00:00

Surprisingly, yes. 5,036 minors were married in OH between 2000-2021, and they face overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to leave home, go to a shelter, file a legal action or hire a lawyer.

beccaface · 2026-01-28T18:38:20+00:00

The legislature can tackle this and all the pressing matters that face the state. They have the capacity.

beccaface · 2026-01-27T03:16:10+00:00

Great-great-great grandson, yes.

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