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.
Of course, conservatives decried the ruling as an intrusion on the legislature. They forget that courts are there to make sure the law is fair, and does not discriminate.
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.
The only problem I have with the ruling is that he'll likely be resentanced under the lesser of the possible sentances. I agree, he should not have been treated differently because he was gay, or because it was a boy (not a girl) he performed the act on. But I'd ask for the harsher sentance, so long as it's applied uniformly across all cases.
Politics
Rights
0 comments:
Post a Comment