The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday unanimously struck down a state law that punished underage sex more severely if it involved homosexual acts.
The court said “moral disapproval” of such conduct is not enough to justify the different treatment.
In a case closely watched by national groups on all sides of the gay rights debate, the high court said the law “suggests animus toward teenagers who engage in homosexual sex.”
The case involved an 18-year-old man, Matthew R. Limon, who was found guilty in 2000 of performing a sex act on a 14-year-old boy and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Had one of them been a girl, state law would have dictated a maximum sentence of 15 months.
The high court ordered that Limon be resentenced as if the law treated illegal gay sex and illegal straight sex the same. He has already served more than five years.
Limon’s lawyer, James Esseks of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, said: “We are very happy that Matthew will soon be getting out of prison. We are sorry there is no way to make up for the extra four years he spent in prison simply because he is gay.”
A lower court had ruled that the state could justify the harsher punishment as a way of protecting children’s traditional development, fighting disease or strengthening traditional values. But the Supreme Court said the law was too broad to meet those goals.
“The statute inflicts immediate, continuing and real injuries that outrun and belie any legitimate justification that may be claimed for it,” Justice Marla Luckert wrote for the court. “Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate state interest.”
The Kansas court also cited the landmark 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas law against gay sodomy.
Not any different from good old American laws that provided for harsher penalties if the person charged was Black.
Regarding your comment: I’m not sure whether blacks will appreciate putting ‘being black’ and ‘being homosexual’ in the same category
Tytus –
What’s your point? You could say the reverse – “I’m not sure whether homosexuals will appreciate putting ‘being homosexual’ and ‘being black’ in the same category” – and it wouldn’t sound any more or less stupid.
There is a problem with your logic, Frank. No one doubts that people are born black. Homosexuality is debated though.
And, pertaining to homosexuals appreciating being homosexual being associated with being black, I don’t know of any gay person who thinks “they were born that way” that would not want to be compared to blacks.
Third, the whole thing with me is that being gay and acting on your impulses are two different things… like wanting to kill someone and killing them… like wanting rob a bank and robbing it. Black people only get the choice on whether they “act black” (which is crude), but that has nothing to do with how much melanin they have.
Since I’m on a tantrum, I just want to say that “moral disapproval” is the main reason we offer criminals different treatment than, say, the Pope. Where we draw that line differs, but I don’t disapprove of people morally because they are black.
Moral disapproval is a major reason for persecuting people in the US, but that doesn’t make it right. The only legitimate reason for the state to interfere in someone’s private life (such as by placing them in a cage) is to maintain public order. It’s not possible to legislate morality & it causes hell on earth if you try.
<3
Wow.
The comment was comparing these laws to laws (quite a few still on the books) that punished non-whites (blacks in his example) accused of breaking the law more than whites. Sounds like a apt comparison. Not the least bit insulting toward non-whites or non-heterosexuals.
Tytus,
Allow me to rephrase your statement: I’m not sure whether homophobic blacks will appreciate putting ‘being black’ and ‘being homosexual’ in the same category.
On the other hand, plenty of non-homphobic blacks (Bob Herbert, John Lewis, Al Sharpton, etc.) have no problem whatsoever with being put in the same category with gays and lesbians.
If you want to improve the world, you’d be better off putting hypocrits into jail rather than homos.