Follow Nebraska’s lead on teen marriage

In the end last week, Nebraskan Matthew Koso avoided trial by pleading guilty to sexual assault charges related to the girl he’d raped when she was 13 and married in Kansas when she was 14. The 22-year-old faces 50 years in prison. Now, Kansas legislators must follow through on their duty to ensure that no more such weddings can occur — without opening new loopholes to allow young teen girls to marry with judicial approval. As Gov. Kathleen Sebelius recently said, "The fact that criminals have used marriage to conceal their abuse is appalling. We must take action to stop this abuse."
Posted by Rhonda Holman

2 Comments

  1. mrcontroversy
    Posted December 20, 2005 at 11:47 am | Permalink

    Let us not forget how this bill became law in the first place.This bill was going nowhere some 10 years ago, when all of a sudden, conservatives in the Kansas Legislature felt the need for a law to ban gay marriage.So they amended gay marriage into the bill and–voila!–they had a “gay marriage” bill they could embarass Democrats with.So what if some 22 year old knocks up a 13 year old? At least we have a law against gay marriage.

  2. Jed
    Posted December 21, 2005 at 1:21 pm | Permalink

    Mrcontro,Makes you wonder how many of those legislators were hoping to acquire a teenage trophy wife.