ACLU Files Brief in Kansas Sodomy Case
The
Advocate, October 3, 2003
http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?id=10060&sd=10/03/03
American Civil Liberties Union officials said Thursday
they will file legal papers with a Kansas appeals court this week in the case
of Matthew Limon, a male teenager who was sentenced to 17 years for having
consensual sex with another male teenager under a state law that treats gay
and straight teens differently. The ACLU is disputing Kansas attorney general
Phill Kline’s assertions that the state should be able to sentence gay and
straight teen offenders differently. “Contrary to Kline’s statements to
the media, we agree that the state can and should protect teenagers,” said
Dick Kurtenbach, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas and western
Missouri. “All we’re asking is that Matthew Limon be treated fairly.
It’s simply wrong for the state to put a gay teenager in prison for 15 years
longer than a straight teenager who commits the same crime.”
Matthew Limon is appealing a 206-month prison sentence he
received for performing consensual oral sex on another teenager while both
were residents at a private school for developmentally disabled youths. Limon
would have served a maximum of 15 months in jail under the Kansas law had the
other teenager been female. But because the “Romeo and Juliet” law applies
only to heterosexuals, Limon was convicted under the much harsher state sodomy
law. “This case is not about marriage, bestiality, the ACLU, or any of the
other things the attorney general is using as a scare tactic,” said Tamara
Lange, Limon’s attorney from the national ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights
Project. “It’s about whether the state can add a decade and a half to
someone’s prison sentence because he’s bisexual.”
According to the ACLU, Kline said the state should be
able to punish heterosexual teenagers less harshly under the “Romeo and
Juliet” law because doing so would encourage them to marry. Kline also
asserted that the law is constitutional because it encourages unmarried teens
to get pregnant. In several interviews since filing the state’s response two
weeks ago, Kline has tried to characterize the ACLU’s case as threatening
marriage, subverting the state legislature, and encouraging teenagers to have
sex. “This case is and has always been about enforcing Matthew Limon’s
constitutional rights to be treated the same as any other teenager,”
Kurtenbach said.
In June the U.S. Supreme Court vacated Limon’s
conviction and instructed the Kansas court of appeals to give it further
consideration in light of the high court’s historic ruling on sodomy in
Lawrence v. Texas. The “Romeo and Juliet” law is similar to the Texas
sodomy law because it treats the sexual conduct of lesbian and gay people
differently from that of heterosexuals. 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.”
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