The Missouri Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would end all child marriages in the state, barring anyone under 18 from obtaining a marriage license under any circumstance.
The legislation, filed by Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder, a Scott City Republican, and Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, passed the chamber on a vote of 31 to 1. It now heads to the House.
Missouri state law currently allows 16 and 17-year-olds to get married as long as they have parental consent. The law has been criticized as a loophole that leaves thousands of teenagers open to abuse and exploitation.
“As a child that was married, I can unequivocally say that it’s a terrible idea and you’re not old enough to make those types of decisions,” Thompson Rehder said during a debate on the bill Wednesday.
Thompson Rehder was married at age 15 to her 21-year-old boyfriend in 1984, she has said. A year earlier, her sister, at age 16, married her 39-year-old drug dealer.
Arthur said on Wednesday she filed the legislation after a constituent reached out to her and shared her story of surviving a child marriage.
“Often, child brides are coerced into these marriages,” Arthur said. “We know that parents don’t always look out for a child’s best interests and we have heard real stories of people who are forced to marry because their parents wanted them to do that.”
Lawmakers in 2018 set the state’s minimum marriage age at 16 with the approval of one parent or guardian. The law’s passage came after The Star revealed that Missouri had the nation’s most lenient marriage law for 15-year-olds. It previously allowed children even younger to marry with a judge’s approval.
Missouri does, however, ban marriage between a minor and anyone 21 or older. The state’s statutory rape law also prohibits those 21 or older from sexual intercourse with anyone under 17.
But opponents of the current law say it still does not go far enough and pushed for the bill passed by the Senate on Thursday.
Before the 2018 law, 88% of minors who were married in Missouri were age 16 or 17, Fraidy Reiss, the founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, a nonprofit seeking to end child marriage nationwide, previously told reporters. The law, Reiss said, has failed to protect 88% of the people it was intended to help.
Sen. Mike Moon, a hard-right Republican from Ash Grove, was the lone lawmaker to vote against the bill on Thursday. Moon, in a text to The Star, said that he felt the legislation violated a requirement in the Missouri Constitution that requires bills related to only one subject.
But the vote came exactly a year after Moon made comments in a House hearing suggesting that children as young as 12 should be able to get married.
“Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12? I do. And guess what? They’re still married,” Moon said last year in response to questioning over his legislation that banned gender-affirming care for minors. Moon at the time was being asked about his previous vote against the 2018 law that raised the minimum marriage age.
Moon later clarified his stance in a follow up video, saying “I do not support adults marrying minors.” He has said he was referring to a 12-year-old boy and an 11-year-old who got married after the girl became pregnant.
During a hearing over the legislation in January only one person testified against the legislation: Timothy Faber, a pastor and director of the Lake of the Ozarks Baptist Association. Faber previously served as chair of the Missouri Human Rights Commission, which enforces the state’s non-discrimination law, until he resigned in December.
Faber previously told The Star that he opposed the legislation because it does not include any exceptions. He pointed to a situation where a “girl gets pregnant and rather than having the child born out of wedlock, they decide to go ahead and get married.” He also said there should be an exception for teenagers who want to get married before entering the military.
But Arthur, the Kansas City Democrat, said previously that opposing child marriage was an issue that transcends politics, saying that it was lawmakers’ responsibility to “protect girls and make sure that they have bright futures in our state.”
Lawmakers tacked on several amendments to the legislation this week mostly centered on marriage or divorce proceedings.
An amendment from Thompson Rehder changes how fees would be paid in a divorce proceeding. When a person fails to abide by a court order to pay fees to the other party, that person would be required to pay the costs of the fees.
Arthur also added an amendment that would add factors that judges should consider when awarding child custody, including the child’s “physical, emotional, educational, and other needs.”
The final change to the bill came from Sen. Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican. Current state law says that a sheriff or law enforcement officer may enforce the rights of a person to custody or visitation.
Brattin’s amendment would change that wording to “shall,” requiring police to enforce those rights.
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