A handful of states allow adults to marry children of any age. California, for example, has no age limit. Girls as young as 10 have been forced to marry adult men. If the so-called Respect for Marriage Act (HR 8404/S 4556) passes, EVERY state will be required to accept and honor the perverse pedophilia-enabling laws of states like California.

Help us STOP THE ABUSE by faxing the Senate and demanding they VOTE NO on HR 8404. Then read on to hear from Pat, who, as a 12-year-old girl, was forced into a marriage with a 25-year-old man. —Mat

No child brides! VOTE NO on HR 8404/S 4556!

Pat grew up in an incredibly neglectful and abusive home, leaving her struggling with mental health issues. At age 12, Pat seriously considered suicide, but at the last moment called a suicide help line.

On the other end was a 25-year-old man who was in his third year of missionary training. The man convinced Pat’s parents that she did not need mental health medication, just his treatment. Not long after, the counselor also persuaded Pat’s parents to allow him to live in their basement. The counselor then began raping little Pat almost daily while her parents were at work.

After two years of repeated molestation, Pat became pregnant, and her parents forced her to marry her abuser to hide their neglect and his crime.

HR 8404 is a handful of votes away from passing in the Senate. Not only will it federalize same-sex marriage, but it will empower any one state’s terrible marriage laws to force the other states to fall in line.

Pat delivered her abuser’s first child when she was 13. By age 14, Pat was juggling junior high, nursing a baby and keeping house for her now 27-year-old “husband,” who became more violent toward her and their newborn.

It wasn’t long before Pat was in serious fear for her and her baby’s lives. When Pat begged her parents for help, her parents said she “was a married woman and had to figure it out” herself. Pat was just 15 at that time.

Because of her age, Pat was legally a ward of the pedophile she was forced to marry. “I was considered emancipated the day I was married, yet I was too young to drive, get a job, rent an apartment or file for a divorce,” Pat says.

By the grace of God, Pat was able to escape her abuser earlier than most child brides. When she was in 11th grade, a counselor learned Pat’s “husband” was beating her almost daily. One week later, the counselor and a social worker helped Pat escape to a shelter for battered children.

“I left school in the middle of the day to go to court for my divorce,” says Pat, whose status as a minor required a court-appointed advocate to act on her behalf. “I made it back in time for 11th-grade English class.”

“This didn’t happen in a far-off country,” Pat says. “I was raised in an upper-middle-class suburban home in the midwestern U.S. My family looked a lot like yours probably does.”

Don’t let Congress create more child bride pedophile victims. VOTE NO on HR 8404!

Child marriage “must not be allowed to be used as a front to hide sexual abuse any longer,” says Pat. What happened to her is legal in several states.

Most states have laws preventing the travesty that happened to Pat and girls like her. But eight states have NO minimum age for marriage at all. In California, laws that enable pedophile marriage have allowed children as young as 10 to be forced to marry adult men two, three and even four times their age.

But if the Senate passes HR 8404/S 4556, every state with sane marriage laws that protect minors will be forced to accept, honor and obey the crazy laws from any other state—even if that state allows adult pedophiles to marry and abuse girls and boys.

Between 2000 and 2018, there were more than 300,000 child bride “marriages” in the United States. As we have learned through researching the consequences of the intentionally misnamed “Respect for Marriage Act,” these unions are not simply a matter of silly, starry-eyed 16- and 17-year-olds “getting in trouble.”

All too often, these child marriages are a way for pedophiles to legally molest innocent children without fear of punishment.

In states like California that allow child brides, girls who manage to escape their pedophile husbands are immediately returned to their abusers by law enforcement officials because as minors, the girls are considered runaways.

If HR 8404 passes, federal law would require even states that prohibit child marriages to return a “runaway child bride” to her abuser if the two were legally “married” in a pedophile-marriage-enabling state.

This is sick and twisted beyond measure, and we need to put a stop to it. Please join me in faxing Congress to demand every member take an immediate stand against the perversion being promoted as marriage in HR 8404. Even one more child bride pedophile victim is one too many!

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UPDATE: Yesterday, I was in federal court with some of my legal team seeking class action protection of the U.S. Marines from Joe Biden’s mandatory COVID jabs. One of our witnesses, a First Lieutenant, had his promotion to Captain revoked and was separated on August 5 solely because he refused the shot for religious reasons. I will share additional information from this important legal battle as I am able.

Mat Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel

P.S. You can also join our petition to make sure your voice is heard in Washington.

Sources:

“About Child Marriage | Unchained at Last.” Unchainedatlast.org. 2018. Unchainedatlast.org/laws-to-end-child-marriage/.

“H.R. 8404—Respect for Marriage Act.” 2022. House of Representatives Committee on Rules. July 18, 2022. Rules.house.gov/bill/117/hr-8404.

“Pat's Story.” Unchained At Last, July 13, 2022. Unchainedatlast.org/pats-story/.