In 2018, Missouri passed a law raising the marriage age from 15 to 16 and mandating parental permission for older teenagers to marry. This should not have been controversial. However, State Senator Mike Moon objected. He thought it was an unwarranted intrusion into the rights of adults to have sex with pubescent children.
To support his position Moon related the experience of a couple he had met at college who had married at 12 — and were still married — leading philosophers to wonder what that had to do with anything. With the same logic, you could argue that Russian roulette is an acceptable pastime because you know people who played it and did not die.
It was not a once-off for Moon. Child brides are a go-to position for him. On Tuesday, during a debate on a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors in the Missouri legislature, Moon said 12-year-olds should have the right to marry with parental permission. And he trotted out his old argument, asking Democratic state Representative Peter Meredith:
"Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12? I do. And guess what? They're still married."
MO State Rep. Aaron Crossley posted a video of Moon spouting his insanity. (Crossley was responding to an apparent MAGA demanding evidence.)
Moon’s support of child marriage came up during a debate over an anti-trans bill he had introduced. The bill would bar gender-affirming surgeries on minors and ban the prescription or administration of cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs to a minor - regardless of what the trans youth's parents had to say.
This interference between a patient and their doctor exposed two facets of Moon’s character. One, he is a hypocrite. Two, he spends a lot of time thinking about children’s genitalia and kids having sex.
His hypocrisy arises from his belief that parents have the right to condemn kids to marriage before they are ready. But parents do not have the right to provide the medical treatment their kids need to prosper.
Rep. Meredith brought that hypocrisy to Moon’s attention during the debate.
"I've heard you talk about parents' rights to raise their kids how they want. In fact, I just double-checked. You voted no on making it illegal for kids to be married to adults at the age of 12.
If their parents consented to it, you said actually, that should be the law because it's the parent's right and the kid's right to decide what's best for them. To be raped by an adult."
Moon later expanded on his rationale for allowing 12-year-olds to marry
"Something that is often missing is the back story. With regard to my answer, I did not discuss the details: a 12-year-old impregnated a minor of similar age. With consent of the parents, they married and are still married today… Her parents consented - no force. Their marriage is thriving."
Does this couple exist outside of Moon’s imagination? Who knows? He has never identified them. More importantly, you should not pass laws based on stories.
Doctors, parents, and other experts do not argue for treating trans youth based on an anedote of one teen who received treatment and led a happy life. They base their treatment on extensive studies of the best medical treatment their patients should receive.
On the other hand, has Moon studied the reality of child marriage? No. If he had, he would know that his kids marrying kids anecdote is an exception. Eighty-six percent of child marriages are between a minor and an adult.
And as Moon is fond of stories, he should consider this. Fraidy Reiss, the founder of Unchained at Last (an organization trying to ban child marriage nationally) told Frontline of the extreme youth of some married minors. The youngest wedded girls were three 10-year-olds in Tennessee who married men aged 24, 25, and 31 in 2001. The youngest groom was an 11-year-old who married a 27-year-old woman in the same state in 2006.
I want to avoid stereotypes of Appalachia — but Tennesse makes it hard.
Child marriage is most prevalent in fundamentalist religious communities. And the vast majority of the children who married were girls. The whole ethos of child marriage is closely intertwined with sexism and the treatment of women as second-class citizens. And it is just part of the culture of bigotry more inherent in some US populations.
In Moon’s world, 12-year-old girls are marriage material. While 12-year-old girls trapped in boys' bodies — or vice versa — can just go kill themselves. Not that he would put it that way. But that is the effect of his beliefs.