At Least We Can Drive in Colorado

Colorado: The Centennial State, home of Pike's Peak, bighorn sheep, Coors beer, the Air Force Academy, the Broncos and child marriage. Well, straight child marriage:

A 15-year-old girl can enter into a common-law marriage in Colorado, and younger girls and boys possibly can, too, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

While the three-judge panel stopped short of setting a specific minimum age for such marriages, it said they could be legal for girls at 12 and boys at 14 under English common law, which Colorado recognizes.

The ruling overturned a lower-court judge's decision that a girl, now older than 18, was too young to marry at 15.

If you want to have a "real" wedding, you have to be 18 -- unless your parents are child pimps, then they can sign for you to marry at 16. Now this ruling on some obscure part of Colorado law seems funny, until you take into account there was an actual case behind it.

The appeal was filed by Willis Rouse, 38, who is serving time for escape and a parole violation. He argued that he and the girl began living together in April 2002 and applied for a marriage license a year later.

The girl had become legally independent by then, but her mother also consented to the marriage and accompanied the girl and Rouse to obtain a license, the ruling said.

Uh-huh ... 38 and 15. And Mother of the Year was completely OK with it. Hell, in Colorado, you have to be 16 to drive a car, and even then, you have to be off the road by midnight!

Of course, Colorado is one of many states hosting a movement to amend its constitution to forbid gay marriage. But if you're straight 12-year-old girl with a pervert/boyfriend and a drunk mama willing to sign the papers for another bottle of Jack, then, you do what you want to, child.

But you still can't legally drive. You'll be on your second child by the time you can. Be prepared and pick out one of these now.