Court upholds sentence of gay teen

WASHINGTON -- A state court in Kansas, under orders from the US Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling that allowed harsher punishment of gay teenagers who engage in sex, reached the same judgment yesterday and defended it as a way to promote traditional moral values.

The Kansas Court of Appeals for a second time upheld the 17-year prison sentence of a youth who, at age 18, engaged in oral sex with a 14-year-old boy. For the same crime, if it had involved an act between an 18-year-old male and a 14-year-old girl, the sentence would have been 13 to 15 months.

In finding that the different treatment was valid, the state court commented in its 2-1 decision:

"The Legislature could have reasonably determined that to prevent the gradual deterioration of the sexual morality approved by a majority of Kansans, it would encourage and preserve the traditional sexual mores of society."

Because children are still developing their sexual identities, "the Legislature could well have concluded that homosexual sodomy between children and young adults could disturb the traditional sexual development," the court added.

The majority said that traditional sexual mores are valued because they promote marriage and childbearing. "Throughout history, governments have extolled the virtues of procreation as a way to furnish new workers, soldiers, and other useful members of society," the majority opinion said.

Matt Coles, director of lesbian and gay rights for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the decision will be challenged in the Kansas Supreme Court and, if that court again chooses not to hear the case, in the US Supreme Court.

The attorney general of Kansas, Phill Kline, said he was pleased that the state court rejected an ACLU argument "that the Legislature cannot enact legislation based upon morality."

The Supreme Court had sent the case back to the Kansas appeals court for a new look after ruling last June that homosexuals have a constitutional right to engage in private sex acts. That decision nullified a Texas statute outlawing sodomy between gays.

The Kansas appeals court, responding directly to the order to reconsider, said the Texas case involved consenting adults, and thus the high court's decision did not apply to homosexual acts involving children.

An ACLU lawyer directly involved in the Kansas case, Tamara Lange, called the state court's reasoning absurd, and added: "The Supreme Court made it very clear that `traditional sexual mores' are no longer a legitimate rationale for discriminating against gay people."

Lange represents Matthew Limon, convicted of performing oral sex on the 14-year-old while the two resided at a school for developmentally disabled youths.