Poll of the Day > Rhode Island governor to sign bill banning child marriage

(+) Yeah! (+)

Welcome to the year 2021, Lil' Rhody <3

https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/05/ri-governor-mckee-poised-sign-ban-marriage-under-age-18/7547552002/


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in Massachusetts the minimum age is still 12 for girls and 14 for boys


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If they're still allowing minors to have sex with adults substantially older than them, is it really changing much?

...and I was reading the story that helped spark the change (the girl referenced in one of the early paragraphs), which is about some crazy Muslim cult. wtf?

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/child-marriage-survivor-california-sara/

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that reminds me of Mississippi finally banning slavery a couple of years ago.

Far-Queue posted...

Welcome to the year 2021, Lil' Rhody <3

According to the last part of the article, 45 more states have yet to "embrace the year 2021", per your definition.

Sounds good but there are states that allow people under 16 to wed which is archaic to me.

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Yeah how does that make sense? "You're too young to vote, to buy cigarettes, alcohol, or guns, to join the military... But get married? Sure! Knock yourselves out!"

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Far-Queue posted...

Yeah how does that make sense? "You're too young to vote, to buy cigarettes, alcohol, or guns, to join the military... But get married? Sure! Knock yourselves out!"

The legal age in most of the country is 16. Makes sense to me to make the marriage age the same as AoC...
I think the problem is much older adults marrying teens. If it was like the Romeo & Juliet laws where it's legal if they're a few years apart...
I mean, I think getting married at 16 is a terrible idea. But so is having a kid at 16 and that's been pretty normalized now.

Also, once again I'm calling you out for your misguided "slam" on the state:

streamofthesky posted...

According to the last part of the article, 45 more states have yet to "embrace the year 2021", per your definition.

How is it misguided? If other states are allowing child marriages they're wrong too and should correct it.

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Far-Queue posted...

How is it misguided? If other states are doing it they're wrong too and should correct it.

Fact: "Rhode Island is more progressive than 90% of the country"
Off-Queue's interpretation: "Wow, way to dig out of the stone age there, Rhode Island!"

If your response was "WTF, America?!" when you learned 45 states still haven't made it illegal, then fine.

Instead you proved you didn't even read your own article and owned yourself.
Imagine if I posted a story about a Nebraska state senator in a sex scandal, assumed it was a Republican b/c it's a red state, and said, "What a shocker, ANOTHER Republican sexual deviant!" only for the article to state it was a Democrat.
Why, the "left-leaning centrists" of this board would chew me out like crazy!

You're reading into my post too much, bud. Take a Xanax and a nap.

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The problem is generally not so much with the age at which people are allowed to get married, it's with the fact that people can get married particularly young if they have parental permission. More often than not, that means parents forcibly marrying off their kids, not kids wanting to get married and seeking parental permission to work around the rules. Locking marriage at 18 and ignoring parental objections to that seems reasonable (and applying trafficking charges to anyone marrying off their kids). Even if that's above the local AoC, the lowest AoC in the country is 16, so that just means a couple can legally be together for two years before getting married, and if having to date for a couple years before getting married is the worst consequence of this, I'd say it's a worthwhile change.

streamofthesky posted...

Also, once again I'm calling you out for your misguided "slam" on the state:

I think it's still reasonable. Being above average is largely meaningless if the average is far lower than it ought to be. 45 more states should indeed amend their laws to be more consistent with reasonable standards for a developed country in 2021.

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I literally post two half-baked sentences without proper grammar or even forming a full, coherent point and streamy here has a fucking meltdown over it lmao

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I mean, it's not unreasonable to say that it's unfair to single out Rhode Island for taking too long to fix a problem that everyone else is also taking too long to fix. It's just also not unreasonable to say that Rhode Island (like everyone else) should have done this decades ago.

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No more child marriages? Now how are children going to get joint mortgages!?!

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adjl posted...

I mean, it's not unreasonable to say that it's unfair to single out Rhode Island for taking too long to fix a problem that everyone else is also taking too long to fix. It's just also not unreasonable to say that Rhode Island (like everyone else) should have done this decades ago.

No I get his point, but I fail to see why he's getting so worked up and jumping to all these conclusions based on what I posted, which amounts to a couple poorly worded sentences. He's making it out like it's some "gotcha" moment when all I did was frame a topic for discussion.

Is it the "welcome to 2021" comment that's making him so upset? I don't see how what I posted is enough to make him so flustered

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What a weird thing to get upset about.

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adjl posted...

Locking marriage at 18

It sounds like one person is trying to get the marrying age to 21...

Far-Queue posted...

I don't see how what I posted is enough to make him so flustered

Maybe he really likes Rhode Island...
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LinkPizza posted...

It sounds like one person is trying to get the marrying age to 21...

makes sense - what point is a wedding you can't drink at?

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@Ogurisama Now, what is a wedding?

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Lokarin posted...

makes sense - what point is a wedding you can't drink at?

Lowering the drinking age would make more sense.

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Nichtcrawler X posted...

Lowering the drinking age would make more sense.

next you're gunna want people under the age of 25 to be allowed to rent cars

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If Rhode Island is so progressive then why are all the pets there having their heads fall off???

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In the wild, a female human beings reproductive age starts at 12.

But nowadays, we don't raise children to be ready for adulthood until 25, if they ever get there.

Hmmm....

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Nichtcrawler X posted...

Lowering the drinking age would make more sense.

Part of the problem with that is age laws are less about fairness and more about responsibility and statistics. Specifically, the drinking age one is because when the drinking age is 18 the number of drunk driving accidents increase by a large margin.

https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/feweryoungdrivers/iv__what_caused.htm

So really the only way the drinking age is going to lower to 18 again is if driving becomes a non-issue (likely a multi-decade and multi-trillion dollar thing, so not in our lifetimes), or if some state lowers the age to 18, forgoing all federal funding that keeping the age at 21 gives them, and in 10-20 years it is determined there was no change in drunk driving incidents.

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Lowering the drinking age is a terrible idea, for alcohol the minimum age to purchase should really be 25

Its one of the most harmful and destructive drugs

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Couldnt the reason that 18 has more incidents also be thats its illegal in the US at that age, possibly... Like, if it was legal, isnt it possible there might not be that many incidents. I cant say for sure, but maybe. The reason is because if they get called to come home, many cant (or wont) say theyre drunk. Because that would be worse. So, they instead try to get the alcohol off their breath and make it home. Where at 21, you can say youve been drinking and youre staying out somewhere. Maybe. I know that doesnt cover all the cases, though...
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Lokarin posted...

next you're gunna want people under the age of 25 to be allowed to rent cars

No idea what the age requirement here is for that, but it is definitely lower than 25.

And the other arguments, I always liked that the original Dutch drinking age was 16, while the legal driving age was 18. The way I see it, that way, the people who want to drink, will have done so before ever getting behind the wheel of a car and will know what alcohol does to their senses. As opposed to the opposite way where people could have an inflated image of their driving skills and underestimate the effects of alcohol later.

Then they increased the alcohol age to 18 and started taking steps to lowering the driving age to 16 and I was just looking on astonished: "WTF are you doing cabinet..."

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LinkPizza posted...

It sounds like one person is trying to get the marrying age to 21...

Maybe he really likes Rhode Island...

That sounds really stupid.

SunWuKung420 posted...

In the wild, a female human beings reproductive age starts at 12.

But nowadays, we don't raise children to be ready for adulthood until 25, if they ever get there.

Hmmm....

What the fuck.
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I think I still like the driving age being younger. Its a more useful skill, where drinking is usually just for pleasure...
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Revelation34 posted...

What the fuck.

I know right. We should be raising children to be ready for adulthood much younger.

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I remember when Americans were dunking on Islamic child-brides.

America has tons of child brides lmao.

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People Iive much longer now so as such childhoods last much longer too. Nobody should be in a rush to reach "adulthood" unless they're an idiot. I wish I could turn back the clock but alas.

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SunWuKung420 posted...

In the wild, a female human beings reproductive age starts at 12.

But nowadays, we don't raise children to be ready for adulthood until 25, if they ever get there.

Hmmm....

Time to stop pontificating, your brain breaks when things get a bit outside of your scope.

What year are we dating 'wild' humans back to? Think we've physiologically changed since then? Is that a bad thing?

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SunWuKung420 posted...

In the wild, a female human beings reproductive age starts at 12.

But nowadays, we don't raise children to be ready for adulthood until 25, if they ever get there.

Hmmm....

Possibly the creepiest thing I've read on this site in a long while.

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Also, define "getting ready for adulthood".

Sex education is given before that age in primary school, even since before I was still that age.

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she can get pregnant therefore she should get pregnant!!!

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Aaaand Sunny's gone full pedo. Can't say I expected this topic to go that way.

Mead posted...

Lowering the drinking age is a terrible idea, for alcohol the minimum age to purchase should really be 25

Its one of the most harmful and destructive drugs

I've really never been a fan of a hard cutoff for drinking ages. It may cut down on minors drinking (although I very much question any such statistics, given that they're generally based on self-reporting, and that's inevitably going to be under-reported for stuff that's illegal), but it means that the ones that do drink do so in secret and without supervision. Permitting supervised drinking at a much younger age (probably 16, possibly 14) would give them an opportunity to learn how to drink responsibly, rather than figuring it out from their peers. Obviously, that's far from perfect, given that not every eligible supervisor is going to be a good role model in that regard, but I think that stands a much better chance of teaching people healthy drinking habits than leaving them to develop that on their own.

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Also, alcohol ages are purchase and drinking in public related.

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adjl posted...

I've really never been a fan of a hard cutoff for drinking ages. It may cut down on minors drinking (although I very much question any such statistics, given that they're generally based on self-reporting, and that's inevitably going to be under-reported for stuff that's illegal), but it means that the ones that do drink do so in secret and without supervision. Permitting supervised drinking at a much younger age (probably 16, possibly 14) would give them an opportunity to learn how to drink responsibly, rather than figuring it out from their peers. Obviously, that's far from perfect, given that not every eligible supervisor is going to be a good role model in that regard, but I think that stands a much better chance of teaching people healthy drinking habits than leaving them to develop that on their own.

alcohol just messes up the brain so much when used by people whose brain is still developing

it is so much more harmful than many illegal drugs

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Mead posted...

alcohol just messes up the brain so much when used by people whose brain is still developing

it is so much more harmful than many illegal drugs

It's bad, yes, but the fact of the matter remains that teenagers continue to drink no matter how illegal it is. I can count on one hand the number of people I know that waited until 19 (the drinking age here and in most of Canada) to drink, and that's not an unusual experience. Make it legal for them to drink under supervision, and that gives them the opportunity to have that experience in a controlled fashion that can teach them responsible drinking practices. Otherwise, it's outright illegal for parents to try to teach their kids about drinking (at least to do more than talk at them, and we all know how well that works for teenagers), which puts many kids at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to learning how to drink responsibly.

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adjl posted...

Make it legal for them to drink under supervision,

Why would that not be legal?

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Nichtcrawler X posted...

Why would that not be legal?

Because of the age requirements...
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adjl posted...

It's bad, yes, but the fact of the matter remains that teenagers continue to drink no matter how illegal it is. I can count on one hand the number of people I know that waited until 19 (the drinking age here and in most of Canada) to drink, and that's not an unusual experience. Make it legal for them to drink under supervision, and that gives them the opportunity to have that experience in a controlled fashion that can teach them responsible drinking practices. Otherwise, it's outright illegal for parents to try to teach their kids about drinking (at least to do more than talk at them, and we all know how well that works for teenagers), which puts many kids at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to learning how to drink responsibly.

you arent wrong, I think that lowering the age though just reinforces the view that drinking alcohol is a social norm and not a big deal for young people

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Nichtcrawler X posted...

Why would that not be legal?

As current drinking laws stand, it's illegal to provide alcohol to a minor. That doesn't technically mean it's illegal to simply be present while a minor is drinking to supervise them, but anyone caught with drinking minors is generally going to be suspected of providing the alcohol to them.

Mead posted...

you arent wrong, I think that lowering the age though just reinforces the view that drinking alcohol is a social norm and not a big deal for young people

It's a fine line. Given the choice, though, I'd rather kids drank at home in an environment where they feel comfortable getting help if something goes wrong than in secret somewhere else.

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LinkPizza posted...

Because of the age requirements...

Which is a buying and public drinking requirement.

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Nichtcrawler X posted...

Which is a buying and public drinking requirement.

In the US, the age requirement isnt only for public drinking...
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