RE: Child Brides In The U.S.
There is no town in Louisiana called Oceania. It is a reference to Orwell's 1984 becoming a reality in this country. There may be some teenagers that are mature enough for marriage, and analogously, there may be some 12-13 year olds who are mature enough to drive, but in a republic we make laws for the average person, not the exception. The generation behind me, generation z, is probably the most ill prepared and least mature generation in history. There has never been a generation more coddled and disincented to take on responsiblity than them. So the real question is can the average gen z handle marriage, just as we asked whether the average 12 year old was capable of driving. The answer of course is a resounding no. Teenage marriage would be ok if we still lived in an agrarian society where you take on adult responsibilities when you reach puberty. We don't live in that world anymore. Laws must change to reflect the social conditions of the time. But my main beef against teen marriage isn't 16-17 year olds marrying each other, its men in their late 20s to 30s marrying teenage girls. This is pedophila plain and simple.
Well, even though I may not agree with you on this issue, I must say that you do bring up some interesting points. At the same time, I don't believe that there really is a one-size-fits-all approach to this issue. You believe that men in their late 20s to 30s marrying teenage girls is pedophilia "plain and simple"? Technically, it would not be pedophilia according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association, although I am well aware of the fact that the press and the media have taken writer's license with the definition of pedophilia in such a way that confuses people on what it actually is and is not. >>>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia
Through the years, I have personally witnessed that most of these men in their late 20s and 30s who marry teenage girls are more anti-pedophile than most people by the same token that many Germans and Austrians are anti-Nazi. They resent being compared with and equated to maniacs who go grabbing 3-year-old toddlers from playgrounds just like many Germans and Austrians are ashamed that Adolf Hitler is a part of their nations' history.
chirieleison? I hope that you are not going to be angry at me when I say this, but here is one point that I must make. I'm not mindless to the fact that our society frowns upon any kind of extra-Platonic interaction between a teenage girl and a man over 21 years old even if it involves and especially it involves matrimony. However, because of the epidemic of deadbeat teenage fathers in our nation and the public apathy that surrounds it, through the years, I feel that our society has lost much of its moral high ground to pass judgment on these men over 21 years old who wed teenage girls. Like you, I am not against 16- and 17-year-olds marrying each other. However, the fact of reality is that these 17-year-old boys who are getting these 16-year-old girls pregnant are not marrying them. Instead, they are mostly bailing on them and shaming them before their peers. And this negative trend is what is sending teenage girls flying into the arms of older men and marrying them. I'm not saying that that is a good thing, but I'm not saying it's a bad thing either. It's just the world that we now live in. I think that you will probably at least agree with me that the fact that many of these adult men who marry these teenage girls actually treat their adolescent wives better than deadbeat teenage dads treat the young girls they get pregnant doesn't say very much positive about the parents of these deadbeat teenage fathers. The parents of deadbeat teenage fathers let their sons get away with ruining the lives of young girls.
Gay marriage is not a subject that I really put much thought into, because I don't really personally know anyone who is gay. I'd have to say that legalizing it has its upside and downside. Its upside is that it addresses the flaws in the inheritance laws that harm gay couples whenever one partner in a gay couple dies. Its downside is that there is a major problem with sexual violence in state correctional facilities across our nation. There is sexual slavery going on in prisons throughout our nation right under the noses of our elected officials, and nothing is being done about it. I read recently about gay marriages that have taken place in prison. It concerns me that inmates could actually be coerced into these gay marriages. Perhaps I am wrong. I haven't really researched into the matter deeply. After I told a friend of mine that serial killer Charles Manson had gotten married to a woman in her twenties, she told me that she felt that no convict should be allowed to get married while serving time in prison. If there are people being forced into gay marriages behind bars, I would have to say that perhaps our legislators need to take public policy in that direction and ban all jailhouse weddings. I have nothing against the LGBT community, but I can understand why people are going to disagree on the issue of gay marriage. That is, it's not as black-and-white of an issue as people would like for it to be.
The distinction is nominal and insignificant. Having sex with a minor at those ages is statutory rape in the majority of states. Society also doesn't determine what is right and wrong; they can form a consensus on what it entails but they cannot change objective moral facts. Your position comes from an overly simplistic and navie outlook that takes everyone's word at face value. Psychologist have already figured out that olderman who date teens do so not out of love, but out of a need to control and exercise power over another person. It's an egotrip thing and impressionable young teens are the perfect subject.
Oh, I completely get it, chirieleison. Our nation was colonized by the Puritans instead of the French. However, here's the thing. Not too long ago, there was this one female co-worker of mine named Beatrice; and she told me and the others in my office that when her parents got married, her mother was 14 years old and her father was 26 years old. By the time she had told us this, her parents had been happily married for close to four decades. I also have another friend named Jose with whom I used to work; and when he first met me, he told me that when his parents got married, his mother was 15 years old and his father was in his thirties. From how he described his parents to me, he made it clear to me that they were happily married and had been so for several decades. People can speculate about Beatrice and Jose's parents all they want, but they cannot argue with the fact that their marriages were successful rather than disastrous despite their age differences and the age factor itself. Now I know that I may sound stubborn when I say this, but here is how I feel. There is nothing that can convince me that 13-, 14-, and 15-year-old girls whose adolescent boyfriends have impregnated them, have bailed on them, and have humiliated them before their peers are going to be so much better off in the long run than Beatrice and Jose's respective mothers are. Sadly enough, the majority of these teen moms whose same-age boyfriends have done a love-'em-and-leave-'em number on them usually end up raising a child on welfare for a very long time. I'm not saying that toxic relationships between teenage girls and adult men don't exist. They do. However, society cannot deny that there have also been successful ones like those of Beatrice and Jose's parents that have turned into happy marriages and happy families.
While I can appreciate your argument about statutory rape, the fact of reality is that "statutory rape" is only rape as determined by law rather than being actual forcible rape in which there is clearly sexual brutalization involved. In the Netherlands, the age of consent was 21 years old up until 1990. However, most adult men who had sex with their 19- or 20-year-old girlfriends did not view themselves as rapists despite that they were clearly in violation of that country's age-of-consent laws. Also, during the 1980s, it was virtually impossible for a minor under 21 years old to get legally married in that country. Once the Dutch Parliament saw that nobody was taking their nation's age-of-consent laws seriously because of the high age of consent of 21 years old, they reformed their sex laws to fit with the times accordingly.
In response to your statement about psychologists, my major concern here is that the mental-health profession has become a slippery slope regarding this topic in recent years. Therefore, I will be posting an article on Steemit regarding this subject matter in further depth. If you want me to let you know that I have posted it, I can do so in order that you may have the opportunity to read it. In any event, even though we were not able to agree on this topic, I greatly appreciate that we were able to have this online discussion in a mature and civilized fashion. I've seen people on YouTube and on other Internet platforms have discussions about this topic or about similar topics, and these people get so hateful and ugly with one another that I don't even know what they think that they are going to accomplish. Even though you were adamant at times in your replies to me, I must commend you for never becoming rude or nasty with me.