Political Weirdos

Oklahoma let several bills concerning child marriage die in committee this year. Pedophilia is legal if you marry them after.

Butler said she had a turbulent childhood living with her mother in southeast Oklahoma City. A family friend started paying attention to Butler when she was a young teenager, giving her the love and affection she says she always craved but rarely received as a child.

By the time Butler was 14, the man was sleeping in her bedroom, Butler said.

Butler became pregnant and said family members told her she needed to get married or else she and her baby could be placed into foster care.

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The marriage was unhappy, Butler said. She stayed at home to care for her newborn child and never finished the 9th grade. She also sometimes looked after her husband’s two other children from a previous relationship, she said.

Butler said it took her 12 years to become financially independent enough to file for divorce.

Her ex-husband said drug use clouded his judgment and that he tried to do the right thing by marrying the mother of his child.

He said marriage was necessary to keep authorities from investigating the situation.

“Everybody involved would have been incarcerated,” he said.