Days out from the election, Virginia voters are calling out John McGuire’s disgusting vote to keep child marriage legal in Virginia. Take it from someone who lived it:
Brigitte Combs, a Virginia woman who was forced into marriage at 14-years-old with a 37-year-old man, is now a leading advocate to ban the practice. In a new profile in the Augusta Free Press, she recalls the feeling of relief when the Virginia General Assembly finally banned child marriage in 2024, with every single Virginia senator voting in favor… except creep John McGuire.
McGuire has been pathetically stumbling through explanations to defend his indefensible vote to let grown men get married to minors: at first saying “if a young man and a young girl get pregnant, they need to have a marriage.” What? Now, he’s scrambling for an even more bizarre explanation to make his pedophile-protecting vote sound somehow reasonable.
Virginians aren’t buying it – especially not Combs, who said: “A court order should not transform a child into an adult for purposes of marriage. Nor should it allow an adult to become the legal spouse of a minor. Marriage can […] make it more difficult to identify or escape coercion, abuse, trafficking or exploitation.”
READ COMBS’ STORY FOR YOURSELF:
- “Brigitte Combs, whose mother had tried to give her away in marriage at the age of 11, finally was forced into marriage at 14, to a b with an 11-year-old son, has been working with several girls’ and women’s rights groups to persuade states to raise the minimum marriage age to 18.”
- “Combs, whose work in the effort to end child marriage began with her reaching out to [Virginia] lawmakers to lobby them on the bill being marked up in the General Assembly, and testifying, nervously, in front of a State Senate committee.”
- “I watched the full Senate floor live feed to see the vote from my kitchen, and that board lit up green, everyone in support, except for one, John McGuire.”
- “[Combs] still remembers the emotion that swept over her as the votes were cast in the State Senate. ‘I was overcome with tears that it had passed the Senate, for myself, for all my fellow survivors, and in relief for children of Virginia. […] One other thing will stick with her from that day. ‘I will also never forget how John McGuire voted,’ Combs said.”
DCCC Spokesperson Eli Cousin:
“Days before an election, John McGuire is still trying to explain why he sided with pedophiles when given the chance to stand up for vulnerable young girls. Virginians will be thinking about his sinister record when they head to the ballot box on Tuesday.”
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