Every Wyoming wedding starts with a question. Two people stand up in front of their families and friends and are asked whether they choose this. Consent is the whole point of the ceremony.
Earlier this month, Tom Lubnau wrote that it is unfair to say John Bear and Chip Neiman "voted to allow adults to have sex with children" when they voted against the 2023 marriage age bill.
I share his belief that campaigns should be fought on the truth. He is one of the more careful legal thinkers in Wyoming public life.
That is exactly why I want to respectfully add to the record he laid out, because I think it changes the conclusion.
Consent is the whole point of this discussion.
Tom's argument is that no matter what the marriage law said, our sexual abuse statutes still made sex with a married child a crime.
He argues that the vote was only about the marriage age, and the connection to statutory rape is a campaign invention. This is not true.
I was on the floor for that debate, and I went back through the transcripts. This connection wasn't invented in 2026. It was stated plainly in the chamber in 2023, before the vote.
On January 20, 2023, before final passage, Rep. Storer told the House: "Currently in Wyoming, you could be married younger than you can legally consent to sex. Think about what that means. A man rapes a child. Is the man charged with rape? Not if the child is forced to marry him, which is often the case. Our laws currently create a legal loophole that allows men to skirt statutory rape charges and allows that same abuse to continue under a marriage license."
No one disputed her on this.
In fact, Rep. Smith stood up to say that the children in his community “seem to be pretty mature and so I will be voting no.”
When the clerk called the roll, almost the entire Freedom Caucus voted no along with Bear and Neiman.
The legal loophole was named, out loud and not once contested, before the vote. Saying so now is not hyperbole. It is the record.
On the law itself, I would point Tom to one more statute.
Wyoming has a provision titled "Evidence of marriage as defense," W.S. 6-2-307. It lists the specific crimes where being married to the victim cannot be used as a defense.
Every crime on that list is a forcible sexual assault. The statutory rape offenses, the sections Tom cites, are not on the list.
And Wyoming statute says common law defenses remain unless the legislature removes them in 6-1-102(b).
For centuries, the common law said a husband could not be charged for sex with his wife. Wyoming removed that defense for forcible assault. The legislature never removed it for statutory rape.
The 2023 bill finally set a floor for the marriage age. It did not fix 6-2-307.
That statute still leaves the statutory rape offenses off the list of crimes where marriage is no defense. It's past time to fix that one too.
Consent matters in marriage. Consent matters in sex. Children cannot give it, and no marriage license should ever paper over that.
Sincerely,
Rep. Mike Yin, Jackson
