Candace Owens says that the courts are not hard enough on pedophiles.
"We are legitimately facing a pandemic of pedophilia in this country," she tweeted on Monday. "The courts are too soft, the institutions entrusted with our children are engaged in active grooming and many parents are too distracted to see what is plainly unfolding in our overtly, hypersexualized culture."
Many agreed with Owens' take.
According to Jacobin Magazine, U.S. sex offender registries now list nearly one million people. Federal, state, and local ordinances forbid convicted sex offenders from living within a certain distance of schools, parks, daycare centers, and other spaces where children might congregate.
The U.S. government spent an estimated $5.4 billion last year at the state and federal levels to imprison adults convicted of sex crimes against children under age 18, according to a new study led by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health researcher.
Yesterday, it was announced that Tennessee Republicans were pushing for a bill that would eliminate age requirements for marriage in the state.
The bill, HB 233, is scheduled to be heard in the House Civil Justice Committee on Wednesday and would establish common-law marriage between "one man" and "one woman." The bill does not have a minimum age requirement.
Democratic Representative Mike Stewart said that without a clear age limitation on the legislation, it could open up the possibility of concealing up child abuse, WKRN reports.
"It should not be there as it's basically a get out of jail free card for people who are basically committing statutory rape—I mean, it's completely ridiculous, so that's another reason why this terrible bill should be eliminated," he said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys under age 18 experienced sexual abuse during childhood.