Really Arkansas, Really

Apparently lawmakers in Arkansas made a mistake in a bill passed this year that allows anyone in Arkansas to marry, no matter what the age, as long as they have parental consent. According to this article, lawmakers designed the bill to establish 18 as the legal age to marry along with allowing pregnant teens to marry with parental consent. However a typo is causing some concern:

An extraneous “not” in the bill, however, allows anyone who is not pregnant to marry at any age if the parents allow it.

The bill reads: “In order for a person who is younger than eighteen
(18) years of age and who is not pregnant to obtain a marriage license,
the person must provide the county clerk with evidence of parental
consent to the marriage.”

Step it up Arkansas, don’t you have anyone proof reading your stuff? I mean who would publish something without going over it with a fine tooth comb? (well except a crappy self published book)

Anyways, this wasn’t the best part about the article. Senator Sue Madison dropped this gem of a quote:

“We need a special session to fix this,” Sen. Sue Madison said. “I am
concerned about pedophiles coming to Arkansas to find parents who are
willing to sign a very young child’s consent.”

What did she think this would be like a pedophile gold rush? Guys would be loading up their free candy vans and rushing to Arkansas?

This got me thinking, would it really be a bad thing if this happened? If we could push all the sex offenders to one state, the other 49 states would really benefit. Lets face it, if we are going to sacrifice a state Arkansas would probably be listed in the top three. This would really free up money in other states, let parents rest a little easier, and finally end those “To Catch a Predator” shows on NBC, what exactly is the downside to all of this?

So Arkansas because you can’t proof read it is time for you to step up and take one for the team.

Would anyone like to nominate another state besides Arkansas?