Gays Not Entitled to Civil Rights Kansas AG Says
365Gay.com,
September 16, 2003
By 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Topeka, Kansas�Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline
says that the state�s sodomy law must be maintained to stop gay marriage,
incest, and sex with children.
Kline made his arguments in a brief to the state Supreme Court in a case
involving an 18 year old convicted of having sex with another teen and in
which he was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison even though a
heterosexual accused of the same crime would have faced only a little more
than a year in jail.
Matthew Limon, convicted in 2000 of having sex at age 18 with a 14-year-old
boy when both were residents of a Paola group home for the developmentally
disabled.
Limon was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for violating the
state�s anti-sodomy law, having two similar offenses on his juvenile record.
If the other teen had been a female Limon would have been charged the lesser
offense of unlawful sexual relations, for which his maximum sentence would
have been one year and three months in prison.
Limon�s sentence is under appeal.
In a brief to the court defending the law, Kline accused the ACLU witch is
representing Limon, of attempting to undermine the morality of Kansas
citizens.
The ACLU is arguing that Limon�s civil rights have been violated because
he is being treated differently than a heterosexual would be.
Kline calls the ACLU position an assault on the state�s prohibition of
same-sex marriage and Kansas laws against polygamy, incest, bestiality and sex
between adults and children.
He said the ACLU�s position was that all people, no matter their sexual
orientation, were protected from discrimination. Kline said that would lead to
the legalization of same-sex marriage�as well as marriages with multiple
partners, incestuous marriages and bestiality.
�The argument in the ACLU brief is a direct assault on the institution of
marriage and also various criminal laws that protect children from sexual
exploitation by adults,� Kline told reporters Monday.
ACLU lawyer Tamara Lange called Kline�s reasoning �absurd, flawed and
wrong.�
�The attorney general is not willing to talk about the case and the
unfairness Matthew Limon is facing,� Lange said. �To try to treat this
case as if it�s a challenge to the marriage law is an act of desperation.�
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