You’d better thank God you’re not in Kansas any more, Dorothy!!!
[This is nuts. Whether applied to straight or queer folk, but especially the latter, in this case… 17 years for consensual sex?!? -Thomas]
Defying U.S. Supreme Court, Kansas Court Upholds
17-Year Prison Sentence of Bisexual Teenager
January 30, 2004
TOPEKA, KS — The American Civil Liberties Union today
deplored a Kansas appeals court ruling that it is
constitutional to give a bisexual teenager a sentence
13 times longer than a straight teenager would receive
for the same crime. “The U.S. Supreme Court ordered
Kansas to reconsider this case in light of its holding
last summer that the government cant have a different
set of rules for gay people than it does for straight
people. But the Kansas courts opinion is written as
if Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down same-sex-only
sodomy laws, had never even happened.” The two-to-one
decision from the Kansas Court of Appeals today
upholds the states “Romeo and Juliet” law, which
gives much lighter sentences to heterosexual teenagers
who have sex with younger teens, but specifically
excludes gay teenagers. In its decision, the Court
gave three explanations for sentencing gays so much
more severely: that doing so will reduce the spread of
sexually transmitted diseases, that doing so
encourages “traditional sexual mores,” and that doing
so promotes procreation and marriage. Matthew Limon is
currently serving 17 years in prison, instead of the
13 to 15 months he would have faced if he were
heterosexual. The Kansas law makes sexual relations
with a minor a lesser crime if both people are teens,
but it only applies to opposite-sex relations. The
“Romeo and Juliet” law, like the overturned Texas
sodomy law, treats the sexual conduct of lesbian and
gay people differently. Under the Kansas law,
consensual oral sex between two teens is a lesser
crime if the younger teenager is 14 to 16 years old,
if the older teenager is under 19, if the age
difference is less than four years, if there are no
third parties involved, and if the two teenagers “are
members of the opposite sex.” A backgrounder on the
case is available online at
http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=14476&c=41
The Kansas Court of Appeals decision can be read in
its entirety at:
http://www.kscourts.org/kscases/ctapp/2004/20040130/85898.htm
More information on how the U.S. Supreme Court sent
this case back to the Kansas Court of Appeals can be
read here:
http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=13033&c=41
