This story is a follow-up to a post I wrote last summer about a statutory rape case involving a 22-year-old man impregnating and (then) marrying a 14-year-old girl. It's also a follow-up to a recent debate I had with Mark Brady at Liberty & Power about the supposed "war" on sex offenders.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- Kansas may have seen the last of its child brides. After a pregnant 14-year-old from Nebraska drove to Kansas last year to marry her 22-year-old boyfriend, now serving time for having sex with the minor, Kansas lawmakers decided it was time [they] set a minimum marriage age.

On Thursday, the Kansas House voted 119-0 to approve a bill that would prohibit anyone under the age of 15 from marrying in Kansas and would set strict limits for would-be brides or grooms under the age of 18. The Senate approved it a day earlier, 36-4.

Behold: the War continues, as the Evil State launches unprovoked aggression against the inalienable natural right to child marriage. Legislation, as Clausewitz once said, is but totalitarianism continued by other means. Not Carl von Clausewitz, of course; I meant Carl's lesser-known anarchist cousin Joey.