According to highly-cited data from anti-arranged marriage advocacy group Unchained at Last, an estimated 248,000 children were married in the United States between 2000 and 2010.

Actual data from 38 states showed more than 167,000 children wed in that decade. The other 12 states and Washington, DC, could not provide the data. For them, Unchained estimated the number of children wed, based on the strong correlation Unchained identified between population and child marriage.

Of that nearly quarter-million, over 85% were girls—roughly 77% of whom were “married to adult men, often with significant age differences.” Kentucky, Washington state, Florida, and Texas join Idaho in the “13-year-olds got married here” club, while Louisiana and South Carolina reported marriages where at least one party was just 12.

The U.S. is also approving additional thousands of applications for children to receive and/or sponsor spousal visas.

Over 5,500 people were granted approval to bring spouses or fiancées under the age of 18 into the country between 2007 and 2017. (The statistics are calculated over fiscal, not calendar, years.) And more than 2,900 minors were given permission to bring older spouses into the country in the same decade, according a report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee released Jan. 11. In almost every case, the younger person in the relationship was female. [...] Of the cases involving minors (as sponsor or recipient), "two minors whose petitions were approved were 13 years old, 38 were 14 years old, 269 were 15 years old, 1,768 were 16 years old, and the remaining 6,609 were 17 years old."

Senior researcher Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch told Newsweek that “child marriage is … associated with girls dropping out of school, sinking into poverty, being at greater risk of domestic violence, and with serious health risks, including death."

Which brings us back to Idaho, and that bill that they killed in their over two-thirds male and mostly white statehouse.

It was Boise Democrat Rep. Melissa Wintrow who introduced and led the bill, according to the Idaho Statesman, with bipartisan support that just wasn’t enough in the face of those who are okay with 13-15-year-olds getting married. Holding up states where residents must be 18 to get married (there are exactly two of them, Rep. Wintrow characterized HR 98 as a compromise.

“Instead of ending child marriage outright, this is a modest approach to bring it in conformity with our statutory rape laws.”

Ada County Democrats’ Legislative Chair Chris Nash, filling in as a surrogate for Boise Democrat Rep. John McCrostie on Thursday, drove home that point with some numbers that should have angered every member of the voting body.

“When it is legal for a 30-year-old to marry a 15-year-old that is not marriage because they are not equal partners. That is institutionalized child abuse. That is arranged rape,” Nash insisted.

Opponents of the bill focused on too much government power as the big red flag to justify stances against what is a no-brainer, common sense piece of legislation.

“I do not think courts should be involved in marriage at all,” said Bryan Zollinger, R-Idaho Falls. “I don’t believe there should be a license required to get married. I think two willing people should be able to go and get married.” Rep. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, said: “This is a decision I think should belong with families. I believe parental consent, which is what is in the law right now, should be sufficient. Rep. Christy Zito, R-Hammett, complained that the bill would make it illegal for a 15-year-old girl to get married but not to get an abortion.

Zollinger, who once made headlines for embracing a conspiracy theory that Charlottesville was a hoax orchestrated by liberals, has also previously used his support of marriage equality to reinforce his stance that “government has no business in licensing families.”

The virulently anti-sex-ed Young is also no stranger to conspiracy theories, serving as a leader in an Idaho chapter of the Freedom First Foundation, which was created in 2007 by people who thought the John Birch Society didn’t care enough about conspiracies.

Finally, fervent anti-choicer and gun enthusiast Zito couldn’t look past imaginary 15-year-olds not having the choice between a shotgun wedding and an abortion.

Unchained at Last does note some good news: Child marriages continue to decline as state laws forbidding or restricting them spread around the country. Unfortunately for young people in Idaho, the majority of Idaho Republicans didn’t just miss that memo—they actively overruled it.