Or, learn why a MAGA lawmaker in Indiana wanted to remove the subject of consent from sex education curricula.

First things first: I do not believe that most Trump supporters condone child marriage. But religious fanatics often do, and the type of individual who is willing to endure the brutal rigors and expense of seeking a position of power or great influence to further MAGA ends is most likely a fanatic — and it’s the fanatics that usually do the most terrible things. The intended audience of this piece includes Trump supporters who may not be aware of the kinds of people whom Trump supporters are actually giving power to. Rank and file Trump supporters: you need to know this.

Behind MAGA leadership’s support for child marriage is a patriarchal belief system characterized by asserting complete ownership and control over other human beings. Let me set the scene.

A now-defunct MAGA church in Central California said the quiet part out loud:

WOMEN’S FELLOWSHIP “HOW DO YOU WEAR YOUR HAT?”
The role of a woman is to be in submission, whether it be to her husband if she is married, to her pastor if she is a widow, or to her father if she is still under his authority. All women fall into one of these categories; they are never independent agents. Which category are you in as a woman? How are you faring in your submission to the one in authority over you? If you are not in submission, you are not in obedience to the Word of God; you resist the order that God has ordained. Get ready to examine your own heart.

https://deannaslair.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Shekinah-lessonsdirectory.pdf

“All women fall into one of these categories; they are never independent agents.” Holy crap. Combine that with a widespread belief in fundamentalist Christianity that children are but property, and that parents must “break their will” until they surrender to blind and immediate obedience:

OBEDIENCE TO ONE’S PARENTS IS NOT AN OPTION THAT THE PARENT AFFORDS THE CHILD
Rather, obedience is to be demanded — with immediacy — always.

The Importance of Parenting and the Course of the Nation, Page 2

With that as the backdrop, have a look at the “Biblical design” for marriage that many of them adhere to:

Biblical betrothal occurs when a man goes to a girl’s father and convinces him to give his daughter to the man as a wife, usually by paying a bride price. The moment the bride-price changes hands, the man and girl were considered married in a not-yet-consummated marriage

What is Betrothal in the Bible?

You read that correctly. A man is expected to approach a girl’s owner father and convince him to give his property daughter over — for a price. If that isn’t human trafficking, I don’t know what is.

So far, so good? Here’s the setting: Women and girls are always under the ownership of one male or another. Children are under the ownership of their parents. Suitors are to approach a girl’s owner in hopes that the owner will be willing to sell his daughter to him. Consent not required. Could this be why a MAGA lawmaker in Indiana demanded that the topic of consent be removed from sex education curricula? State Senator Gary Byrne claimed that “[consent] is a sensitive subject for many.” Oh, REALLY?

Remember Duck Dynasty’s MAGA star Phil Robertson? His remarks, “Look, you wait ’til they get to be 20 years old, the only picking that’s going to take place is your pocket. You got to marry these girls when they are about 15 or 16. They’ll pick your ducks.” caused quite the stir. He added, “You need to check with mom and dad about that of course.”

Libby Anne, an author who grew up in the MAGA homeschool environment and is now a critic, published her interview with a homeschool father, who said, “I know that in my case, I cannot even begin to fully communicate the wonderful gift Maranatha’s father gave to me in his daughter on the day we married.” He married Maranatha when he was 27 and she was 15. This is the “Biblical betrothal” described above.

Isolated incidents, one might allege? Not really. Arranged child marriage, though uncommon among the MAGA rank and file supporters, is common enough in the activist/fanatic ranks that national gatherings are held for the specific purpose of handing off minor girls to mature men. There is literally a market for it.

One such organization is “Let Them Marry,” led by a man named Vaughn Ohlmann. He describes himself as “theonomic,” which is a polished fundamentalist term for the belief that Old Testament religious law should be imposed upon everyone by brute government force as is done in Iran or Afghanistan. “Theonomic.” In other words, MAGA. What appears at the site now is a shell of what appeared there in the past.

Another widely respected, influential proponent is Voddie Baucham. According to these two sources, he teaches, “The first line of protection for our daughters is protecting their purity. Quite simply, our job as fathers is to present our daughters to their husbands as virgin brides (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)”, adding that “The father is the one responsible for protecting his daughter’s virginity. This is evident for at least two reason. First, the father must provide evidence of his daughter’s virginity.” I can only imagine how this would be accomplished today. Blech.

There you have it: a well established fundamentalist subculture known as the Biblical Patriarchy Movement that believes in or at least allows for child marriage — even arranged child marriage, and is a movement that, according to the thesis, “has gained tremendous momentum and influence
among Christian homeschoolers.” And I will speculate with confidence that 90+% of MAGA leadership, activists, lawmakers, candidates, and influences subscribe to this ideology.

With this knowledge, a whole lot of weird stuff in red state legislatures is about to make perfect sense.

The South Dakota Democratic Party laments that “For a second year in a row, Republican lawmakers in Pierre failed to end child marriage in our state.” Missouri Republicans relentlessly oppose banning child marriage in their state, even as one GOP state senator, Holly Thompson Rehder, noted that “I was married at 15. My sister was married at 16. My cousin was married at 16.” One Missouri GOP lawmaker defended marriage at age 12.

New Hampshire MAGA lawmaker Jess Edwards blurted right out that minor girls “are ripe and fertile” — words that echo descriptions used by Vaughn Ohlmann almost verbatim. MAGA lawmakers in Tennessee stalled a bill that would ban child marriage, claiming that passing the law might undercut a legal argument against same-sex marriage. Knowing what we now know, does anybody buy that?

My explanation is simpler: efforts to ban child marriage would step on MAGA’s toes.

I believe that this also goes a long way to explain why MAGA churches have a perversion problem. Think about it: MAGA’s religious ideology

1. Erects such high and formidable barriers to sexual freedom that sexual intimacy becomes a scarce, rigidly controlled commodity
2. And then constructs a doctrinal power hierarchy that empowers men to literally crash through the barriers that their own oppressive ideology erected, and demand sexual access and gratification from females regardless of their consent.
3. It only follows that an ideology that makes sexual intimacy so almost unobtainable, yet gives males, including predatory males, the “authority” to break through the barriers of consent, would be an ideology that is rife with sexual and physical abuse.

Now you know why a MAGA lawmaker in Indiana demanded that the topic of consent be removed from sex education curricula.

Q. E. D.