This one's going to the SCotUS...

[TXlib]

Official justifies harsher penalties for gay sex
Says promoting traditional values is reason enough
Wednesday, September 1, 2004 Posted: 10:14 AM EDT (1414 GMT)

TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) -- The state can punish illegal underage sex more harshly when it involves homosexual acts, even if the only goal is promoting traditional values, a state official told the Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday.

In a closely watched case, Deputy Attorney General Jared Maag said legislators have such broad latitude in setting policy that "any conceivable, rational basis" would justify the different treatment.

Maag argued in favor of upholding a sentence of more than 17 years in prison for Matthew R. Limon, convicted of criminal sodomy for having sex at age 18 with a 14-year-old boy in 2000.

Had the victim been a girl, Limon could have been sentenced to one year and three months in prison under a 1999 "Romeo and Juliet" law that gives shorter sentences to heterosexuals if the partners' ages are within four years and under 19.

More...

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I think this one is going to have to go to the US Supreme Court before the state of Kansas admits defeat.

Statutory rape laws, in my opinion, should make no distinction between same-sex and opposite-sex acts.

[GOPisEvil]

1. For crying out loud, Kansas makes Texas look normal every now and then.

[TXlib]

2. Yeah, except Kansas isn't full of Aggies!

:evilgrin:

[GOPisEvil]

3. Not yet.

:evilgrin:

[sui generis]

8. Manhattan Kansas

home of "Aggieville"

[DemoTex]

4. Dateline Topeka, Kansas ... home of the Westboro Baptist Church

And the sicko Rev. Fred Phelps.

[sui generis]

5. if I had a dime for every time one of those assholes used the term

"traditional values" I'd be out-donating Soros.

What a brainless thing to say. Limon was a child himself when it happened. What, you wake up on your 18th birthday and all of a sudden you're a criminal? I know there has to be a line in the sand, but it is the responsibility of our courts to exercise discretion in sentencing in matters like this.

A criminal justice who upholds that sentence is not serving society. He is instead advocating the destruction of Limon's entire adult life for an act that many teenagers do every day, and purely because he's a bigot. Cruel and unusual punishment? Definitely. Jared Maag you are the vilest form of human excrement.

[Bandit]

6. In Bush* Amerika some are More Equal than Others.

:shrug: Why do they Hate America?

[Q3JR4]

7. The SCoTUS bitch slapped the Kansas court system once.

I've been thinking for some time that they'll have to do it again.

[elehhhhna]

9. "Rome & Juliet" Clause? 18 does 14 = shorter penalty? creepy right there