[napscoordinator]

My God. I am stunned. I thought Free Republic was against pedophilia. You make me unsettled by your post.

[JRandomFreeper]

A 16 year old is not a child. You have issues.

/johnny

[JohnnyM]

This saying is something Phil has said in his testimony, on the show, and in his book. It is a joke. Here is the excerpt from his book where he says the same thing:

"Miss Kay was the perfect woman for me. I was sixteen and she was fifteen when we were married. Nowadays some people might frown on people getting married that young, but I knew that if you married a woman when she was fifteen, she would pluck your ducks. If you waited until she was twenty, she would only pick your pockets. Now, that's a joke, and a lot of people seem to laugh at it, but there is a certain amount of truth in it. If you find a nice, pretty country girl who can cook and carries her Bible, now, there's a woman."

[petitfour]

Now that I think about it, my aunt was 16 when my aunt and uncle married. They have been married well over 50 years. My mother, on the other hand, married when she was 25. She was all about having a job of her own and money of her own. Guess who had a happy marriage and who did not.

[MortMan]

I’m a little confused. Robertson is advising young men to marry a slightly younger woman, and using humor in doing so. He is not advising older men to have sex with 15-16 year old girls. He isn’t advising the young men to sleep wantonly with multiple girls - but simply to pick a mate when she is young, but clearly post-pubescent.

From his time, way back when, marriages at 15 were not considered unusual. In his testimony, he is pointing out that the commitment - the marriage - comes before the bedroom olympics, to boot.

How is he espousing pedophilia? I’m not trying to pick a fight, but rather I am honestly confused by your interpretation of his words.

[highball]

Yeah, I find this all creepy too.

It can be problematic to elevate a mortal man to the status of Moral Hero. He’s just a guy, we shouldn’t have tried to make him a Grand Symbol.