The Michigan House voted 104-5 in favor of House Bill 4293, one of the bills criminalizing child marriage. (Screenshot from Michigan House TV)

The Michigan House voted to pass a package of bills to restrict the practice of child marriage on Wednesday, with five far-right Republicans opposing every bill.

House Bills 4293 through 4302 are a package of bills to criminalize child marriage and emancipate children that are currently married. Child marriage is currently legal with the permission of one parent.

One of the bills was House Bill 4293, which prohibits the marriage of an individual under 18 years of age with no exceptions, removing the ability of parents to allow the legal marriage of their underage child. The bill’s sponsor Rep. Kara Hope (D-Holt) spoke on the floor before the vote and said that more than 5,000 children were married in Michigan between 2000-2021. Of those child marriages, 80% were between adolescent females and adult males. Despite these disturbing figures, five Republicans including Reps. Angela Rigas (R-Caledonia), Neil Friske (R-Charlevoix), Matt Maddock (R-Milford), Steve Carra (R-Three Rivers) and Josh Schriver (R-Oxford) voted against the legislation.

Endorsed by Trump in 2020, Rigas admitted that she was involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot and says it’s a “compliment” to be called an insurrectionist and terrorist. She also attempted to recognize Jan. 31 as “Gas Stove Appreciation Day” in the state earlier this year, a dig at the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s proposed ban on the appliance.

Friske introduced HB 4136 in February, which would allow anyone to object to any public library book and have it placed in a restricted area with other “sexually explicit” and “obscene” materials. He also opposes Democrats’ attempt to ban conversion therapy, saying, “To criminalize social workers for simply upholding natural law and refusing to buy into the new age left-wing gender schemes is outrageous!”

Maddock joined 11 other Michigan state legislators in January 2021 to attempt to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral victory in the state. He also was in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 during the Capitol riot, and his wife Meshawn organized busloads of Donald Trump supporters to attend the Stop the Steal rally that led to the riot. His actions got him ousted from the Michigan GOP caucus in April 2022.

Carra previously attempted last to criminalize abortion and punish anyone that conducts one with up to ten years in prison and a $100,000 fine. He also tried to downplay the Jan. 6 riot, condemning only a “few rogue and malicious agitators and individuals who were caught up in the moment” while blaming the riot on liberals and pandemic shutdowns.

A freshman lawmaker, Schriver explains every vote he makes on his official website. These include his vote against banning discrimination based on hair texture and style (“Politicians can add countless examples of things that should not be discriminated against — but that doesn’t mean we need a law for it”), his vote against making Juneteenth a state holiday (“I cannot justify giving government workers another day off funded by Michigan residents unless there is a functional reason to do so, like Election Day”) and his vote against closing a marital rape loophole (“An all-to-common case of divorce can easily turn into a rape trial, making messy situations even messier.”) He has not given an explanation on his votes against criminalizing child marriage as of press time.

Among the other proposed laws were bills to establish the minimum age of consent for marriage at 18 years old, remove the term “marriage of a minor child” from other laws, revoking minors the right to marry and clarifying certain obligations of minor children released upon marriage. The same handful of Republicans voted against each bill in the package, although six other Republicans joined in voting against the establishing the minimum age of consent as 18.