Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also…Selling Your 14-Year Old Daughter?

The press loves to pontificate about Mexico’s alleged family values. But that fantasy doesn’t hold up when the facts are revealed

By Brenda Walker

A recent cultural offense in California got international attention: the Mexican who sold his 14-year-old daughter for cash and beer—a nasty mishmash of a tale with too many twisted hooks for the press to ignore. The beer angle may have initially attracted friends of the noble brew, but the pedophile and slavery aspects likely left a bitter taste of diversity depravity.

Time and more details have only added to the ugly.

The first reports were bad enough. A father from Oaxaca, Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, arranged with an 18-year-old neighbor to trade 160 cases of beer, six cases of meat, $16,000 and other assorted beverages in exchange for his 14-year-old daughter. And when the groom, Margarito Galindo, was not forthcoming with the loot even after the girl had obediently moved in with him, concerned dad Martinez went to the police to complain about non-payment.

Both men are illegal aliens from Mexico.

The Greenfield PD has been propagandized with the usual ethnic sensitivity training—look at this PowerPoint presentation [16.2 MB] on the fine points of Oaxacan indigenous culture on its website. But the police appreciation of diversity did not extend to endangerment of a child.

The initial charge against Martinez was Penal Code section 266D, taking money or valuables in return for allowing a person to live with someone to whom they are not married, a felony. (Slavery is illegal in California, but maybe the police didn’t think of that.)

Police Chief Joe Grebmeier noted that Martinez’ actions would not be illegal in Mexico, including arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl, because the age of consent is 12 in some locales. Greenfield police have heard rumors of girls that young being sold into marriage in the city. But the recent case is the first one where the perp went to the police and announced his behavior.(…Full Article)