Marriages for Underage Mothers

I am a Latina social worker and I am responding to “O.C. Agency Has Helped Underage Mothers to Wed” (Sept. 1), regarding the marriage of teenage girls to their impregnators. I find it offensive when I hear anyone say it is “cultural” that young girls marry older men. It is against the law for this to occur in this country.

If an agency charged with protecting children is going to honor another country’s culturally different practices, then the agency should honor all countries’ cultural differences and shut down. For example, if there are some countries where it is culturally accept- able to cane, whip or beat a child, or where infant girls can be killed, because the family wanted a boy, etc., then we do not need an agency that is supposed to protect children as we honor the different cultural practices.

The solution to teenage pregnancies is not marrying them off to the adult who took their childhood away.

NIEVES MONGE

Anaheim

Let this be a cultural statement of caring parents willing to help their girls (who are having sex anyway, and they cannot stop this) give their children a father, a name and the obligation for the men to support them rather than going on welfare. The social services agency and Larry Leaman should be praised for their involvement and help with this. The men involved are assuming the responsibilities on their own and I’m sure the relations have been ongoing; not a one-time thing.

EDDIE GARDEA

Reseda

Re “Child Mothers and Marriage,” editorial, Sept. 5: There is no tough call and no complexity.

* The men involved are criminals!

* No girl under age 18 has any “life” experience, education, maturity or the moral right to cope with child rearing.

This is just one vast soup of bureaucratic nonsense. It is the administrative welfare system sustaining the “incubator” of sloth and crime. When will America wake up? It is long past time to pass mandatory abortion laws and thereby end this social stupidity!

BILL GEORGE

Los Angeles