Kansas Experiments With Equality

You have to love it when a State Supreme Court in a Red State steps in and makes right a law that is morally wrong. It takes strong belief in the American principle that we are all equal under the law to fly in the face of popular opinion. Kansas has raised equality up one notch this week with a ruling that rejects a law that made teen gays and lesbians unequal to heterosexual teens under Kansas Law.

You've just turned 18 year old and you're a guy in Kansas. At your graduation party you meet the younger sister of a friend who will be 15 soon. The two of you start dating and, as things happen, you are caught in the midst of an oral sex act. Under Kansas' "Romeo and Juliet" law, you are convicted of statutory rape and given the maximum sentence of 15 months in jail, even though the sex was consensual.

Across town, another young man who just turned 18 is also caught having oral sex with another person who will soon turn 15. The two have known each other for years and had a relationship but even though the sex was consensual, the older person is charged with statutory rape and is given the maximum sentence of 17 years, two months in prison. You see, the younger person in this case is also a boy.

The two boys lived together in a group home for the developmentally disabled. An official described the younger boy as being "mildly mentally retarded" and the older boy as "functioning at a higher level but not as an 18-year old." The official added that this kind of "sexual experimentation between teens of this age was not unusual for group homes."

Up until this week, this was considered justice in the great state of Kansas. The 1999 "Romeo and Juliet" law mandates lesser penalties for illegal sex when partners are age 14 to 19 and less than 4 years apart. As written, it specifically applies only when the partners are of opposite sex.

Matthew L. Limon is currently serving a 17 year, 2 month, sentence under just such circumstances back in 2000. He has served over 5 years of that sentence so far. Had his partner been a girl, he would only have served 15 months.

The State Supreme Court in Kansas has trashed the law this week saying the law's language "suggests animus towards teenagers who engage in homosexual sex." The Court added that, "Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate state interest. The statute inflicts immediate, continuing and real injuries that outrun and belie any legitimate justification that may be claimed for it." Odd that, since Kansas maintains that the moral disapproval of gay marriage IS a legitimate state interest.

That being the case, the Kansas Supreme Court decision didn't go down real well with conservative court observers. They are mumbling under their breath the usual right wing song about the decision being a "sign of an activist court system."

Attorney General Phill Kline described Limon as a "predator," and feels that such behavior warrants a tough sentence and courts should "leave sentencing policy to the Legislature." A conservative law group, Orlando, Florida based Liberty Counsel, helped prepare written arguments from 25 legislators in support of the law.

The Court, however, concluded that "the statute inflicts immediate, continuing and real injuries that outrun and belie any legitimate justification that may be claimed for it."

Mayhaps there is yet some hope that the people of Kansas will come to understand the meaning of EQUAL.

Limon's attorney is of course very happy that Limon will be released soon. But he is sorry "there is no way to make up for the extra four years he spent in prison simply because he's gay.

AMERICA - With liberty and justice for ALL.

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