Bill increasing age of sexual consent dies in Oklahoma House amid flap over childhood marriage ban

OKLAHOMA CITY — An effort to raise Oklahoma’s age of sexual consent appears dead for the session after lawmakers tried to take it a step further by also banning most childhood marriages.

Senate Bill 615 sought to increase the age of consent from 16 to 18. It also contained provisions that would have protected adults who had sex with children 15 or older from prosecution if they were within four years of age.

State Rep. Andy Fugate, D-Oklahoma City, said the bill was designed to make it easier to prosecute statutory rape, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers approved a last-minute amendment to also ban most childhood marriages.

Fugate, who filed the amendment, said it would have allowed child marriages only after a court had emancipated a minor. Current law requires parental consent for children to marry, he said.

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He said if someone has to seek parental permission, they’re too young to marry. Parents should not be consenting for children to marry adults, but rather should be reporting them as “groomers and rapists,” he said.

“Respectfully, you shouldn’t be marrying off your kid,” he said. “You should be reporting the adult that had sex with your kid.”

Fugate said Oklahoma is in the minority of states that still allows child marriages but said some people still back laws allowing children to marry adults who impregnate them.

He also said he had fundamental issues with proposed changes to the law that would have allowed children to have sex with adults if they’re within four years of age.

“This body talks all the time about its concerns about pedophilia and groomers, and the fact that we even had a bill on the floor that would have permitted adults to have sex with children is just appalling,” Fugate said. “And for all those folks who talk about marriage and the sanctity of marriage to also be pitching a bill on the floor that says it’s OK for them to have sex outside the confines of marriages, it’s just bewildering to me.”

Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, the measure’s House author, said the bill is dead this year. When lawmakers attempted to add a childhood marriage ban, he decided to postpone consideration. 

Olsen said he can see both sides of including a minimum marriage age, but he said that’s an entirely different section of law. He wanted the age of consent provisions considered on their own merits.

Olsen said teenagers don’t always wait until marriage to have sex and get pregnant.

“So you’re in a situation, is it better to send them out of state for an abortion? Is it better for her to be a single mom? Or is it better for them to be married? I don’t know, but I don’t want to take that option off the table,” he said.

Olsen said he’s disappointed that the bill won’t become law. The bill was designed to prevent a 35-year-old from convincing a 16-year-old to have sex, he said.

“It’s a different thing, a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old versus a 16-year-old and a 35-year-old, so the bill made what I consider to be a reasonable exception,” Olsen said.

Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, said in a statement that he’s disappointed the bill failed.

Hamilton, the Senate author, said “some miscommunication” led to the demise of the bill, which would better protect children.

“This will not be a deterrent,” he said. “I plan to refile this legislation next year, work harder to make sure everyone is on the same page and make the protections for children as strong as possible. I appreciate my Senate colleagues and House counterparts who agreed with me and voted for it. I am confident we will make it happen next year.”