Virginia introduces law to stop 12-15 year old girls from getting married
The effort to update the laws involved Republicans and Democrats
Between 2004 and 2013, around 4,500 children under the age of 18 got married in the state of Virginia. Of these girls, more than 200 of them were aged 15 or under.
Last week, the authorities in the state introduced new legislation that updated rules that had until then made it legal for girls aged 12 or 13 to get married if they had parental consent and were pregnant.
The changes - a move that campaigners said brought Virginia’s laws into the 21st Century - followed a long fight by activists who said the change was aimed at curbing forced marriage, human trafficking and statutory rape disguised as marriage.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/virginia-introduces-law-to-stop-12-year-old-girls-from-getting-married-a7119091.html
What in the urban fuck.... sigh, well glass half full right? Yay for upping the age limit...
No matter how attractive this ban on underage marriage may have appeared to some, it wasn't a good idea. If it were to be entertained at all, it should have been placed on the November 2016 ballot as a proposition for voters to decide rather allowing for legislators to decide upon this new law's ratification. However, the supporters of this new law would not have likely taken it in that direction, because they probably knew that there was a greater than expected chance that the majority of voters in Virginia would have decided against it. A law like this once existed in California, and it ultimately failed. This law will likely fail in Virginia and will eventually be repealed.
This is going to do more harm than good to the state of Virginia. This law is going to fail. Also, I honestly don't think that Virginia State Senator Jill Holtzman Vogel will be elected as lieutenant governor of this state. She overlooked how this is going to adversely affect the country folks living in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains.