by Travis Mateer

I wasn’t sure what to write about today, so I poked around the local media landscape to see if anything warranted some RD scrutiny, like this effort to provide the FIRST COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS of child marriage and sex laws.

After reading this story, here’s my question: does Montana REALLY need this comprehensive analysis, or does Kimberly Dudik need paid work after being one of the Democrat losers this last cycle for statewide office?

The “Safe Community Challenge” is the schtick being sold by Dudik’s Public Policy Institute of the Rockies. Here’s some more context from the KPAX article:

The “Safe Community Challenge” by the Public Policy Institute of the Rockies examines laws around child marriage, consent to sexual contact, discrimination, sexual assault kit testing, spousal rape, and the statute of limitations for sexual crimes. For now, just western states have been analyzed.

The Institute’s CEO Kim Dudik, said her varied experience as a domestic violence advocate, registered nurse, attorney, prosecutor, and state legislator has culminated to this passion project.

So, Dudik has herself a PASSION PROJECT to study laws around child marriage? Will Dudik be getting paid in passion points, or will the FIRST COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS require some government cheese to complete?

The article doesn’t talk about that kind of stuff, just the potential harmful effects of marriage on 16 year old, which is apparently one of the focuses for Dudik and her new institute:

She told MTN News that in Montana, the age of consent for marriage is permitted for 16-year-olds under some circumstances, which she argues may hurt children. The information provided in their program, she says, may educate lawmakers and advocates on the current laws surrounding the issue and more.

“We’ve tried to make that easily accessible to them so they can gain the knowledge and learn from other’s experiences. Not only here in Montana, but also nationwide to see what we can do better,” Dudik explained, “We’re hoping that this will improve knowledge, improve experience, and also make people understand why these are so important, why it matters that we have a strong child marriage law for example.”

I am so glad politicians like Kimberly Dudik can land on their feet after losing a big election to do meaningful work protecting children from marriage. Children NEED this kind of protection because at 16 they shouldn’t be allowed to make BIG decisions about their lives.

Unless it’s about an experimental product from Big Pharma, of course.