OPINION: Kevin Bolling, Merced-Sun-Star
California likes to think of itself as the state where the future arrives first. What happens in California often shapes the rest of the nation. So why does the Golden State still allow child marriage?
A 15-year-old cannot vote, buy a beer, sign a lease, serve on a jury or get a tattoo in this state. But with a parent’s signature and a judge’s approval, they can be married — even to an individual twice their age. More than 8,000 California children — mostly girls — reported that they had been married within the prior year, according to 2021 U.S. Census data analyzed by Unchained at Last, a nonprofit advocacy group.
That may finally change. Assembly Bill 1267, authored by Assemblymembers Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach; Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz; Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine; and Sharon Quirk Silva, D-La Palma, would establish the rule most Californians assume already exists: No marriage before 18. No exceptions.
The bill has passed the Assembly and now sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It deserves to become law. The current reality in California is that sex with a child is rape — unless the perpetrator marries the child.
A marriage license is, quite literally, a get-out-of-jail-free card for a would-be child rapist. We have built a legal system in which the paperwork that should trigger an investigation instead forecloses one.
Read more at: https://www.mercedsunstar.com/opinion/article316582149.html#storylink=cpy
