Missouri bill to ban all child marriages runs into resistance from House Republicans

A bipartisan bill that would outlaw all child marriages in Missouri has run into resistance from Republicans in the Missouri House that could prevent it from becoming law.

The legislation, filed by Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder, a Scott City Republican, and Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, would prohibit anyone under 18 from obtaining a marriage license. Current law allows 16 and 17-year-olds to get married with parental consent.

The GOP-controlled state Senate approved the bill on a nearly unanimous vote of 31 to 1 last month. But the legislation has since stalled in a House committee with just more than a week left in this year’s legislative session which ends on May 17.

Supporters of the bill say the opposition illustrates some lawmakers’ extreme and archaic views on marriage. Missouri previously had one of the nation’s most lenient laws surrounding child marriage and the state’s current law has been criticized as a loophole that leaves thousands of teenagers open to abuse and exploitation.

“Any explanation used to justify opposition is nothing more than, you know, an excuse to protect predators,” Arthur said in an interview.

The committee’s chair, Rep. Jim Murphy, a St. Louis-area Republican, said in an interview that there aren’t enough votes within the committee to get it to the House floor. Seven of the 14 committee members oppose the legislation and disagree with raising the state’s marriage age, he said.

“It’s on the … going 16 to 18,” Murphy, who supports the bill, said of the opposition. “There’s just enough members in that committee that don’t think that’s a good idea.”

One of those lawmakers is Rep. Dean Van Schoiack, a Savannah Republican and vice chair of the committee. Van Schoiack said in an interview that he knows people who got married as minors, including a woman at roughly age 17.

The couple, he said, is “still madly in love with each other.”

“Why is the government getting involved in people’s lives like this?” Van Schoiak said. “What purpose do we have in deciding that a couple who are 16 or 17 years old, their parents say, you know, ‘you guys love each other, go ahead and get married, you have my permission.’ Why would we stop that?”

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