Republicans Kill Tennessee Child Marriage Ban, Then Change Minds

NASHVILLE, TN -- An effort to close a loophole and ban child marriage in Tennessee looked effectively dead for the year after Republicans on a House committee, urged by the Family Action Council, cited an unproven and obscure legal theory, but too GOP leaders reversed course later Thursday.

In February, State Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat, and Rep. Darren Jernigan, a Democrat from Old Hickory, held a press conference pointing out a loophole in state law that allows judges to grant a waiver of the 18-year-old age requirement for marriage. A non-profit found that, in 2001, three 10-year-old girls were granted waivers by judges to marry men in their 30s. The state disputes those findings.

Nevertheless, Yarbro and Jernigan pushed forward only to be flummoxed by the House Civil Justice Subcommittee Wednesday, which voted to send the bill to summer study. With rare exception, summer study is effectively a death sentence for legislation.

House Majority Leader Glen Casada, a Franklin Republican, read an email he received from former Sen. Lee Fowler, who now leads the conservative lobbying ground Family Action Council of Tennessee.

FACT is currently engaged in a legal battle to essentially reverse the Supreme Court of the United States' decision in Obergefell vs. Hodges which legalized same-sex marriage across the country. FACT's argument is that the decision nullified all Tennessee marriage licenses. Fowler said that changing marriage law would acknowledge that the state can regulate marriage and thus would show that FACT's argument is meritless. A Nashville judge has already dismissed Fowler's claim, but he is trying again in Bradley County.

"Some people think the state should regulate marriage, and I do not," Fowler said in the hearing Wednesday.

"Basically, what has happened is the Family Action Council wants to continue to let 13-year-olds get married in the state at the sake of their court case against same-sex couples," Jernigan said, according to The Tennessean. "It's disgraceful. I'm embarrassed for the State of Tennessee, and I can only pray that we bring this back next year and not let them get in the way."

Yarbro tweeted his frustration.

On Thursday, however, Casada said he changed his mind and told The Tennessean he learned that judges were, in fact, letting people younger than 12 marry adults as Yarbro contended. He said the subcommittee would revive the bill.

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