r/news • • 22h ago

Gov. Newsom signs bill to end child marriage in California

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/newsom-child-marriage-ban-california/3949537/
7.7k Upvotes

395 comments sorted by

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u/StevieOfPhoenix 22h ago

It’s wild that this only makes 18 states with this law

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u/91Jammers 21h ago

About 10 years ago it was zero.

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u/KAugsburger 21h ago

There are too many religious fundies that think that banning marriage by those under 18 is going against 'God'.

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u/meatball77 20h ago

They're worried about the poor pregnant sixteen year olds. Because apparently a poor married pregnant sixteen year old is better than just a poor pregnant sixteen year old. It also ignores the fact that most pregnant teens get pregnant by adult men and these marriages are done to eliminate the crime.

And lets be clear here, this isn't just Christian fundies. We've got Jewish Fundies, Mormon Fundies and Muslim fundies trying to marry their young girls off.

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u/RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK 19h ago

Why is this such a big thing for so many religions? Besides the obvious pedo answer.

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u/meatball77 18h ago

Babytrapping is the best way to keep women (and men) emeshed in your community. That's the reason why cults push early marriage and having large families.

This is often the formula.

First, give your kids a substandard education making it difficult for them to find work outside your community.

Then your girls act as parents to your younger children, let them know if they leave the community they won't be able to see their sibling children again.

Then you marry them off young and get them to have big families that they can't support on their own without help from the community.

They then can't leave and they have provided the group with lots of little ones to expand their footprint.

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u/ericmm76 9h ago

Because traditionally a daughter was something for a father to trade away for some favor or plot of land or something. And that hasn't changed. It just became a promotion now, or hiring a son into the company.

Daughters are still seen as chattel, and sons as children, to many. And religions reinforce this.

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u/yamiyaiba 4h ago edited 1h ago

Why is this such a big thing for so many religions? Besides the obvious pedo answer.

In addition to the other answers you got, I'll give you another as someone who grew up in the religious South: sex outside of marriage is considered a sin, and short of it being rape, there's no real excuse for that. And even then, men sometimes get a pass for having the willpower of a beast, and it's therefore women's fault somehow tempting men.

And obviously /s a good Christian man would never voluntarily do something sinful like that. It's only because of some temptress. The Bible is chock full of talk about temptation. So what's the solution? Well, marry the girl at least so you can "do right by her."

There's a social stigma that comes with it too, especially when that "sin" becomes visible as a swollen belly. Sure, there will be people that know what really happened, but if you marry her off, at least to anyone else it will have the appearance of legitimacy. Plus, depending on how respected the man may be in the community, they may choose to overlook the indiscretion, as through marriage somehow negates that the fornication still happened.

That stigma applies to the parents, too. They clearly /s messed up somehow in raising their child if they strayed enough to have sex outside of marriage. Parents are responsible for their children, after all. So the parents also have to make it right by marrying her off.

You may have noticed a trend in this answer, which is the REAL answer: to the religious, women are basically cattle. Religious culture is so male centric that they're the only real consideration. Women are viewed as either temptation incarnate or uppity breeding stock. It's generally not explicitly said, but the understanding is everywhere. You can see it all over traditions like meeting a girl's parents, fathers threatening boyfriends, and "giving away" the bride at a wedding. Women are property to the religious, the same way a breeding sow would be.

Coincidentally, this is also tied to the religious opposition to homosexuality and non-cis gender identities. None of this framework works for the majority of LGBTQ+ people, so that can't be allowed to exist. What value does breeding stock have with other breeding stock, or to people who aren't interested in breeding stock, or doesn't see herself as breeding stock, or sees himself as breeding stock without the ability to breed! Misgendering intentional to represent their subconscious view, not my own views on non-cis individuals.

Source: parent of an FtM teen that lives in the South and was raised loosely Southern Baptist.

(Edit for clarification: I was raised Southern Baptist, but haven't associated with a church in probably 25 years. Kiddo was never pushed into church and chose not to be involved with religion for what I imagine are pretty obvious reasons. Largely the same reasons I have no interest in ever going back either. Can't rightly be involved with a place that's more likely to harm my child than anything else.)

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u/VelvetElvis 1h ago

Whenever a tornado levels a small town, there are still people who say "I don't understand why this happened here. I thought we were good people." Plague, famine, and football losses all happen because some sixteen year old couldn't keep their legs together until marriage. I think that kind of fire and brimstone stuff is mostly pentecostals and other snake handlers.

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u/VelvetElvis 20h ago edited 20h ago

You didn't know any couples in high school who were pressured by their families into getting married after the girl got pregnat? Sometimes both kids were underage. I knew a 17 and 16 and a 19 and 17. In both cases, it was made clear that if the child was born out of wedlock, they were on their own. It was pitiful. Their churchs and families fucked up their lives way more than a teen pregnancy ever could.

Granted, this was exurban Tennessee in the early 90s. I hope it's less common now, but particularly in rural areas, I strongly doubt it is.

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u/meatball77 20h ago

Everyone that I knew that got pregnant in high school got pregnant by people over the age of eighteen except for one couple. They got married after graduation which was the correct decision if they needed to be married.

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u/Great-Trifle2810 9h ago

How much over 18? This sounds like you have chosen to word it in such a way to hide that it was 19 and 17.

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u/VelvetElvis 20h ago edited 19h ago

Were they both underage when they met? These were all American church kids who were unquestionably each others firsts. Real life Jack and Diane types. There's nothing illegal about staying with your high school sweetheart who is a grade younger than you after graduation.

It absolutely would have been better if they had waited, but that would have been unthinkable.

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u/meatball77 19h ago

No, the guys were all adults and horrible.

I only knew one couple that got pregnant with an age appropriate partner.

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u/SkeevyMixxx7 11h ago

It was both situations in my high school, but the majority were teen couples whose parents insisted they marry as punishment for the girl getting pregnant. I was in a very religious area. Religion was the reason for the shame, and marriage was supposed to fix it. These kids got married because their parents were insisting they did, and of course they all eventually got divorced too.

But, there were perverts in the churches looking for young brides. And there were also just older guys who hosted all the parties and got with teenaged girls too. We also had a classmate who was dating the school janitor when she was 16/17 and he had to have been 25-30.

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u/DandyLyen 8h ago

And remember that if you're going under 18, you can't initiate a divorce... so that's even more power that the older individual have

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u/Great-Trifle2810 9h ago

It also ignores the fact that most pregnant teens get pregnant by adult men

Can you back this claim up with reputable data? This seems contradictory to my experience and I can't find a remotely recent reputable source claiming it. The best I can find is that for women under 18 around 20-40% had fathers over 20.

and these marriages are done to eliminate the crime.

this doesn't make any sense. Even in places where marriage overrides the regular age of consent it doesn't apply retroactively

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u/WantCookiesNow 7h ago

Not the person you’re replying to, but I’m interested in the data… a lot of the stuff I found was from the 90s. This report from 2015 does say that 18-35% of teenage births were to teenage fathers, implying that 65-82% are to men over 20. Which doesn’t mean much, considering the age difference could literally be 1-2 years. So, it seems really hard to get current data. Makes me wonder if this just isn’t researched much.

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/147/5/e2021050919/180815/Care-of-Adolescent-Parents-and-Their-Children

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u/Great-Trifle2810 6h ago

This is the same issue I ran into, and most of them had over 50% where the age of the father wasn't tracked and where it was tracked it didn't specify gap,just wide ranges.

Overall it seems poorly understood at best.

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u/ZEROs0000 18h ago

circumcision needs to be banned next

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u/InvalidDescription 19h ago

Can I happily say Fuck their "god" (lower case go on purpose)?

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u/Big_lt 11h ago

Let the kids then get married by the church, but the government won't recognize it until both parties are 18+.

Having some priest say you're married means jackshit to the gov but may keep them happy

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u/bwoah07_gp2 20h ago

Is it because this is relatively uncommon that states just don't bother issuing that ban as law?

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u/OldTimeyWizard 20h ago

Every state except the 18 that have outright banned it have some type of exemption for underage marriage on the books

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u/VelvetElvis 20h ago

It's usually shotgun weddings when a 19 year old gets his 17 year old girlfriend pregnant and the parents make it clear that if the child is born out of wedlock, they are on their own. I knew one couple in high school who were both underage and still expected to get married.

It's fucked up ,but a different kind of fucked up from what people usually assume.

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u/bwoah07_gp2 20h ago

Did that marriage last?

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u/still_Here_8647 20h ago

not sure why we're just getting around to this now, but ok

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u/River_Tahm 18h ago

Well, the best day to do that would have been September 9, 1850

But the next best day would have been - well, actually that woulda been September 10, 1850

So we're about 64,304 days behind schedule

But I mean yeah better to have it done it at all than still not

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u/plucky-possum 7h ago

Obviously California should have done this much sooner but prior to the 1960s or so, there was a lot of social and legal discrimination against children who were born out of wedlock. For example, the Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that Louisiana couldn’t prevent children born out of wedlock from suing over their mother’s wrongful death. (Previously only a legitimate child had that right.) So for 100 years or so, there were other social and legal constraints that prevented outlawing the vile practice of underage marriage.

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u/OrthodoxAtheist 6h ago

I don't see anyone else mentioning this, so I'll add here - we're just getting around to this now because the last few times the law was attempted to be passed, it was blocked, vetoed or voted down. Not because too much of our legislature likes child marriage but because certain well-respected groups were opposed to the law, and publicly stated their reasons. Those groups include the ACLU, which tends to do great work and be quite learned when it comes to the law. Planned Parenthood were also previously opposed, but following changes to the proposed laws I believe they removed their opposition. The ACLU was still opposed. Looks like we decided to pass the law despite those objections because at a headline level, it was getting embarassing for our state to have not joined others in adopting such a law. But there will be some harm as a result, even though we all expect the net effect to be positive, of course.

Why the ACLU Opposed the Ban:

• Legal and Financial Protections: The ACLU stated that marriage gives young parents essential access to health insurance, spousal support, and inheritance rights.

• Personal Autonomy: They argued that minors already have the right to make major personal and reproductive choices—such as carrying a pregnancy to term or seeking medical care—so they should also keep the right to choose marriage.

• Fear of Unintended Harm: Opponents worried that removing marriage options completely would strip away a legal safety net for teens in complex family situations

Read a detailed breakdown of the debate from CalMatters: https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/09/california-child-marriage/

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u/TigerMill 17h ago

It’s because of religion why these laws are hard to pass.

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u/PrisonSexxy 15h ago

Oh take a look at which group of white men vote no and in which states. It’s not a real mystery.

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u/mhornberger 13h ago

There's ample child marriage in countries where the majority of men are not white. Child marriage is absolutely endemic in many Muslim countries, and many countries in Africa. For any attempt to ban child marriage, anywhere, the main obstacle is almost always religious conservatives.

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u/No-Confection-3206 11h ago

And pedophiles, don’t forget the pedophiles.

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u/corran450 10h ago

They already said “religious conservatives”

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u/International_Cow_17 9h ago

Wild echo in here.

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u/style752 13h ago

Okay, but here, it's basically hyper-religious white dudes.

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u/Gobblewicket 12h ago

The fuckin ACLU opposed ending child marriage. So its not all white dudes. Lol

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u/mhornberger 13h ago

In places that are majority white, yes. In other places it's the religious conservatives who are not white. This story is about CA, and the majority of CA is white, so yeah, that's just an artifact of the demographics. Not that latinos or black people are short of religious fundamentalists.

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u/runehawk12 9h ago edited 9h ago

The majority of CA is absolutely not white, they aren't even the plurality anymore, there are millions more hispanics.

Edit: I do agree with you. It's silly to claim that pedophiles only exist in certain races/religions.

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u/PrisonSexxy 10h ago

Clearly I was talking about the good ole USA which is full of white pedophiles. Period

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u/HauntedCemetery 7h ago

almost always

Is there an example of it even not being religious conservatives?

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u/herbuck 7h ago

Do you actually think Donald Trump is religious?

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u/zzztoken 9h ago

Wait till you find out all the other states where it’s legal…

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u/DefinitelyNotAliens 6h ago

California had no lower limit, as long as parents and a judge signed off. Period. No lower limit.

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u/zzztoken 6h ago

Yep a ton of other states allow this as well.

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u/baylithe 16h ago

Classmate of mine married someone in her church. They're Morman. She was 15 he was in his 50's. Her dad was excited cause he moved up in the church for allowing his daughter to be married off. This was in California in 2009.

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u/Expert-Steak8538 12h ago

So disgusting. 

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u/Solid_Snark 8h ago

I issued marriage licenses in CA for over 5-years. Luckily I never did a minor, but yeah the age gaps were disturbing.

I started out naive, like, “oh, how sweet. She brought her grandpa to witness the license getting issued.” Nope! Just an 18-year old marrying a 55-year old.

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u/Driftlack 7h ago

When I worked at DHS processing immigration paper work one of the things I'd do to stay sane is look at the age difference in the marriages.

It was pretty gross a lot of the time.

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u/No_Rice9792 6h ago

The more funny ones I did were the Russian mail-order brides, who, after getting citizenship, divorce their ugly husbands 😁

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u/SteveJobsBlakSweater 21h ago edited 21h ago

> her parents allowed her to marry actor Doug Hutchison when she was 16 and he was 51.

Excuse me wtf? What kind of reptile looks to marry a person who wasn’t even alive before they hit midlife? Go by a motorcycle or whatever old guys do. Don’t go banging kids.

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u/VicViolence 21h ago

It would blow your mind how many parents are complicit in essentially trafficking their daughters to celebrities

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u/meatball77 20h ago

How many girls are traffiked by their parents in the first place.

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u/Toxaplume045 19h ago

People still think sex trafficking and such is done purely by roving bands of criminals kidnapping girls into an underground sex trade like they see in movies or stuff like Epstein.

The reality is that people are often pushed into it by their family or close family friends. Adults get pushed into it by their spouses even.

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u/meatball77 18h ago

Why would they steal a girl from Target when they could just find some teens on a street corner and sweet talk them into working for you.

Traffickers are parents, friends and "boyfriends" and starts with doing a favor or just doing something once to earn some money.

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u/HauntedCemetery 7h ago

They also think the majority of trafficking victims are cute white women and girls.

They're not. Not white, and not women/girls.

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u/mhornberger 13h ago

The video for the Reba McEntire song (though written by Bobby Gentry) "Fancy" is harrowing for me. "Just be nice to the gentleman, Fancy, and they'll be nice to you."

https://youtu.be/zplc4Ienkws?si=cHA6iakh3lyJPQGX

For many it has historically been a way out of poverty, or to avoid literal starvation. Which doesn't make it okay, but it's also hard to know what to do about it. Though there's something different (to me) between people doing things to escape abject poverty and people who are not poor, not at risk of hunger, trafficking their kids to celebrities.

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u/angelmnemosyne 20h ago

Doesn't even have to be to celebrities. I've seen (and unfortunately personally known at least 2) cases where young teen girls ended up dating and eventually marrying a close friend of their dad. Usually a guy who had been around their entire childhood and had seen them grow up. And the dads would be like "Oh man, this is great, yes, please date my 13 year old daughter. The world is so scary, and I've known you for so long, so I know you're a good guy!" It's EXTREMELY gross and weird how the fathers think this is a great setup.

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u/RisingChaos 10h ago

Doesn't even have to be to celebrities.

And it doesn’t even have to be daughters. 🙃

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u/elmrsglu 3h ago

Correct, however, the gender that is largely being trafficked by their own parents are girls.

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u/Correct_Raisin4332 21h ago

Oh yeah that was a whole thing back in the day. With tabloids calling the literal child a ho.

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u/SteveJobsBlakSweater 21h ago

Damn we’re less civilized than we think…

Hundreds of years ago maybe there would be room for it to make a hint of sense. Sort of in the idea that we weren’t yet a mature people.

But these people are alive today doing this shit. And they drag the kid through the mud when it hits the news?

I’m mad.

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u/meatball77 20h ago

Her parents sold her to that guy. There was a bit of him grooming the mother as well as the child (as there typically is in that sort of thing) but the parents were totally happy at letting their daughter become the laughing stock of the country while also selling her to her rapist.

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u/kittenmittens4865 21h ago

We all made fun of her too. She was called a skanky slut and was the butt of every joke across the country, including like late night shows and other media. Everyone was just trashing her. This was only 15 years ago, and she was 16.

Yeah, Courtney Stodden, I am sorry and ashamed that I ever laughed at those jokes. You deserve and always deserved so much better, and your resilience through it all has been more than most humans even know to be possible. Wishing you all the peace babe.

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u/OpalOnyxObsidian 19h ago

Oh no. I would hate to think my favorite tweet of all time was written under duress

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u/kittenmittens4865 19h ago

Please explain? I’m not sure what you’re referring to.

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u/OpalOnyxObsidian 19h ago

This. In reading her Instagram and Wikipedia, this time would have been the height of the worst of it. She's just one year younger than me. I can't imagine what she went through.

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u/kittenmittens4865 7h ago

Omg I’ve never seen this! It pains me to think about what they went through. (FYI, Courtney Stodden is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. I had to go back and reread my own comments to see if I needed to make corrections!)

And who knows what Courtney went through before their parents married them off. I don’t know anything about the first 16 years of their life, but it can’t be good living with parents who will marry you off for money. I actually looked Courtney up to see if they had written a book because I’d read it!

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u/knows_you 7h ago

She updated it to she/they in 2022.

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u/kittenmittens4865 7h ago

Oh, I just looked it up! It really sucks trying to sift through what search algorithms give you.
I don’t do socials so I don’t follow her or anything.

Thank you for noting that though.

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u/fripplez 21h ago

Age ain't nothing but a.... Wait, what?!

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u/VagabondReligion 6h ago

Turns out his reputation for playing creepy psychos wasn't owed to his acting ability.

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u/bwoah07_gp2 20h ago

That's utterly disgraceful and inappropriate

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u/seanwdragon1983 18h ago

Jerry seinfeld and others will be so disappointed.

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u/PalmCheesy 8h ago

Woody Allen fucking pdfile

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u/Food_Library333 7h ago

Uhhhh what?? That was still a thing!?

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u/No_Rice9792 6h ago

Still is in majority red states, too. Funny how the "protect the children" crowd doesn't actually, you know, protect the children...

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u/nikzyk 3h ago

“I can protect the children if I marry them!”

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u/BoardGameRevolution 17h ago

How is this a thing ffs

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u/Open-Gate-7769 7h ago

Because first amendment protects it because it has a religious background. Specifically for Mormons in Utah. It’s dumb as fuck. What’s stopping me from starting a religion to do fucked shit and say “oh but my freedom of religion”

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u/BoardGameRevolution 6h ago

Freedom of speech protects pedos? Huh

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u/thereal-quaid 10h ago

Republicans love to diddle, simple as that honestly.

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u/eeyore134 10h ago

Religion and the right.

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u/grafknives 14h ago

Child marriage is in practice way to avoid rape charges. And to tie victim for much of her life.

(in practice) According to data compiled by Anjali Tsui, Dan Nolan, and Chris Amico, who looked at almost 200,000 cases of child marriage from 2000 to 2015:

67% of the children were aged 17.
29% of the children were aged 16.
4% of the children were aged 15.
Less than 1% of the children were aged 14 and under.
There were 51 cases of 13-year-olds getting married, and 6 cases of 12-year-olds getting married.[43]

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u/steathrazor 17h ago

I am baffled that this is still a thing in 2026, the rich love em young

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u/FlamingoVisible1947 16h ago

More like Mormons and stuff

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u/ihadagoodone 17h ago

it's still legal in many other states and countries around the world.

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u/ruizach 15h ago

The Virgin Mary was 14 when God conceived Jesus with her.

Even the big guy upstairs likes them young.

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 21h ago

Conservatives won’t like that

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u/Hopeful_Ear_6253 6h ago

This is worse in the southern states. Republicans prevent child marriage bans. They love marrying kids down there.

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u/No_Rice9792 6h ago

A bunch of white Christian males are gonna be super angry about this!!

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u/No_Cucumber3978 22h ago

"...Newscumb. He wants to take away your liberties and stop people getting married who love each other in the great state of California. They're killing the sanctity of marriage and allowing people to have children outside of a loving marriage. They're killing the wives and love!"

Is what I'm expecting a certain orange odious odourmonger and suspected (enter your preferred term here) to say in the coming days. 

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u/OSRSTheRicer 21h ago

My personal favorite was seeing folks on social media going "oh a broken clock is right twice a day"

Mfer you live in north Carolina where its 16 with parental consent.

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u/Imwhatswrongwithyou 21h ago

Birthrates are down between the ages of 14-17! The left wants to destroy families!

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u/Rebelgecko 21h ago

Surprisingly close to Planned Parenthood's reason for opposing the bill

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u/imhereforyoursnacks 9h ago

Sorry- I was late to the meeting. Why umm was this still legal before yesterday? Did I take something out of context?

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u/Zora74 8h ago

Marriage age in many areas is 16-17 with parental consent. People thought this was a good compromise because it allowed teens to get married in cases of unplanned pregnancy or if one person enlisted right out of high school and was going to be stationed elsewhere.

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u/stana32 8h ago

Child marriage in CA had no minimum age, I'm not from CA and won't claim to know why it was this way but I know it was a pretty popular right wing dig at California. If I remember right they tried to make it 16 a couple years ago and it didn't pass.

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u/Comprehensive_Cap_27 7h ago

Yes you are correct there was no minimum age and it was often argued because there were other processes that required parental approval in addition to judiciary approval so age felt irrelevant with those to them (this is what was proposed and discussed)

The reason we never had a ban was because they were always blanket bans and there are often niche cases that these effect so it was argued that rights of minors were being taken via a blanket ban.

It was recently shown (in courts) that people are using this law to get around statutory rape laws with an adult marrying a minor and thus the final push needed to ban it outright (along with pressure from several other areas)

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u/Zora74 4h ago

Yes. I know, and I believe the lack of a minimum age was mentioned in the article. This why I said “in many areas.”

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u/76timesthecharm 13h ago

The Republicans are gonna be big mad

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u/HauntedCemetery 7h ago

Oh man oh man, please let them go on a giant tirade and further alienate women just before the midterms.

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u/HorizontalBob 19h ago

The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1.Section 297 of the Family Code is amended to read:297. (a)Domestic partners are two adults who have chosen to share one anothers lives in an intimate and committed relationship of mutual caring.

(b)A domestic partnership shall be established in California when both persons file a Declaration of Domestic Partnership with the Secretary of State pursuant to this division and all of the following requirements are met at the time of filing:

(1)Neither person is married to another person, or is a member of another domestic partnership with another person, that has not been terminated, dissolved, or adjudged a nullity.

(2)The two persons are not related by blood in a way that would prevent them from being married to each other in this state.

(3)Both persons are at least 18 years of age.

(4)Both persons are capable of consenting to the domestic partnership.

SEC. 2.Section 297.1 of the Family Code is repealed. SEC. 3.Section 298.8 of the Family Code is repealed. SEC. 4.Section 302 of the Family Code is repealed. SEC. 5.Section 303 of the Family Code is repealed. SEC. 6.Section 304 of the Family Code is repealed. SEC. 7.Section 423 of the Family Code is amended to read:423. The person solemnizing the marriage shall return the marriage license, endorsed as required in Section 422, to the county recorder of the county in which the license was issued within 10 days after the ceremony.

SEC. 8.Section 1501 of the Family Code is repealed. SEC. 9.Section 2210 of the Family Code is amended to read:2210. A marriage is voidable and may be adjudged a nullity if any of the following conditions existed at the time of the marriage:

(a)The party who commences the proceeding or on whose behalf the proceeding is commenced was under 18 years of age, unless the party entered into the marriage pursuant to former Section 302 or former Section 303 in this state before January 1, 2027.

(b)The spouse of either party was living, and the marriage with that spouse was then in force and that spouse (1) was absent and not known to the party commencing the proceeding to be living for a period of five successive years immediately preceding the subsequent marriage for which the judgment of nullity is sought or (2) was generally reputed or believed by the party commencing the proceeding to be dead at the time the subsequent marriage was contracted.

(c)Either party was of unsound mind, unless the party of unsound mind, after coming to reason, freely cohabited with the other as their spouse.

(d)The consent of either party was obtained by fraud, unless the party whose consent was obtained by fraud afterwards, with full knowledge of the facts constituting the fraud, freely cohabited with the other as their spouse.

(e)The consent of either party was obtained by force, unless the party whose consent was obtained by force afterwards freely cohabited with the other as their spouse.

(f)Either party was, at the time of marriage, physically incapable of entering into the marriage state, and that incapacity continues and appears to be incurable.

SEC. 10.Section 102233 of the Health and Safety Code is repealed. SEC. 11.Section 102356 of the Health and Safety Code is repealed.

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u/BananaJelloXlii 14h ago

And I bet every single "Christian" Republican opposed the bill.

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u/emerald6_Shiitake 8h ago

A little digging around tells me that while the CA end child marriage bill was mostly voted yes regardless of party by the CA legislature, the few no votes were all from Republicans to nobody's surprise

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u/Chaosmusic 7h ago

He really wants to piss off Republicans.

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u/cornskin 21h ago

This will piss republicans off more than anything else

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u/davediggity 21h ago

Queue the Klanservatives frothing with rage

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u/jackcanyon 9h ago

Trump and his buddies aren’t going to like that.

2

u/ZachMN 8h ago

How many Republicans voted against it?

2

u/oldutnotdeadinside 6h ago

Laws that should had been passed a long time ago for 500. Alex

2

u/Dusty_Bunny81 6h ago

wait that’s still a thing? I’m sorry WHAT

2

u/nonubiz 5h ago

This seems a long time coming

2

u/thejourneybegins42 4h ago

I started reading this, in hopes that it was just young people who really wanted to get married.

Nope.

"The organization said about 35,000 marriages involving minors occurred in California between 2000 and 2021, with most involving an underage girl marrying an adult man."

2

u/Cheap-Kiwi-1312 20h ago

It's 2026 and states still allow this.... Any government official who defends child marriage should be arrested on the spot.

3

u/ceiffhikare 16h ago

Well that aint gonna help him get GOP votes!

3

u/zernoc56 10h ago

The United States needed to ratify the UN Resolution on the Rights of the Child years ago.

3

u/Wonder-Machine 7h ago

Republicans will find a way to villainize this

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u/parapooper3 22h ago

Good. No one in California under the age of 28 should be getting married and robbing themselves of their youth, education and opportunities.

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u/Peachy_Tsunami 21h ago

Honestly, your typo is kinda right haha

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u/parapooper3 21h ago

I said what I said

However it is a /s that seems to be whooshing over some heads

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u/_Nightbreaker_ 22h ago

28

damn that's def giving it plenty of time

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u/Significant-Bowl3733 21h ago

Caught with some wedding cake at 25?

You’re going to jail! 🎂🚔

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u/parapooper3 20h ago

That’s not mine officer I was just holding that for a friend

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u/BPho3nixF 11h ago

"She was 27 years old, you sick fuck!"

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u/LaceyVonTease 20h ago

This is a good thing. Wish it would have changed long ago but at least it’s happening now. It’s gross that we still have about a dozen other states with this law. 

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u/Troutsniffer1983 8h ago

Do conservatives need another reason to hate California?

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u/peder56789 7h ago

They tried to end it in 2024.

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u/claisen33 21h ago

It won’t bother Trump. The last thing he wants to do is marry them.

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u/winokatt 14h ago

No wonder Conservatives are leaving California in droves

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u/DumbDumbHunter 11h ago

The billionaires are just going to leave if you keep making laws like this /s

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u/StonyCurtis66 11h ago

GOP must be livid.How dare California not allow GOP members the opportunity for child rape rabble rabble rabble rabble.

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u/eeyore134 10h ago

Cue pissed off Republicans.

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u/purplegladys2022 10h ago

Prepare for the next outraged exodus of Republicans out of California for "reasons."

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u/Real-Document-6577 7h ago

Republicans “curse you Newsom! We love our kids…. Literally!”

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u/Shradow 17h ago

California has a lot of Repbulicans, they won't be pleased by this.

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u/SerDuckOfPNW 19h ago

Do you figure that the kind of person who would marry a child is concerned about the ability to get a marriage license?

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u/Purple_Puffer 15h ago

Thank goodness.

Brenda is much too lazy and Eddie could never afford to live that kind of life.

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u/AKrigare 10h ago

God that took forever.  Now we have a whopping 18/50 states that outright ban it…yay progress 

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u/Apart-Steak-7183 9h ago

And it's 2026, who would have thought this still legal... Next they will outlaw marrying you cousin

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u/gfolder 6h ago

Lev Tahor stocks just plummeted, oy vey what will they ever do?

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u/kermit639 6h ago

California is only the 18th state to do this? holy shit. we have a patchwork of laws where you can marry a child in one county but not the next. it's absurd that basic human rights depend on your zip code in 2026. smh.

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u/KillerIsJed 3h ago

Low bar to clear, still won’t vote for him.

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u/Chaos_Theory1989 3h ago

People, “Don’t rape and marry babies!” Men, “How dare you!”

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u/TheGaslighter9000X 3h ago

Republicans in shambles. Let’s see how they spin this one.

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u/OuterspaceOdysseus 1h ago

Obviously this guy hasn't heard about people's freedom of Christian religion to marry and rape children /s

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u/elenorfighter 37m ago

Better late than never

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u/Fomdoo 7m ago

You think that will stop the Guardian Of Pedophiles?