In a staggering display of homophobia, the Kansas Court of Appeals has rendered a truly bizarre decision. Apparently it’s marginally okay there to sodomize an underage someone of the opposite sex, but not someone of the same sex.
Eighteen years in prison versus 1.25 years for what amounts to the same offense (the same except for when it involves those dirty, skulking homos). This will surely do wonders to protect all those abused children out there.
Hopefully, all the members of the Kansas Court of Appeals (save the one dissenting opinion) will enjoy their stays in the third rung of hell at some point.
I’m so appalled by this that I can’t even generate a good rant. Christ.
Don’t forget the most important reason given by the prosecutor for upholding the longer sentence: if same-sex sodomizers can be punished more severely than opposite-sex sodomizers, it will encourage those opposite sex sodomizers to get married.
A-fucking-MEN, Chefguy. (Well, technically, I guess “fucking MEN” is the whole issue, here – but I digress.)
My mom and I saw this in the Topeka Capital-Journal on Saturday, and were equally disgusted. I can’t believe more people in the state aren’t up in arms. But what really gets me is this:
So the traditional sexual mores of society dictate that if you’re going to molest a kid, make sure it’s the opposite sex, I mean what are you, totally depraved?
Don’t even get me started on how Matthew Limon (18) and the 14-year-old boy with whom he had sex (thus earning himself the 18-year “sodomy sentence”) are both developmentally disabled . . . :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
After doing some websearching on child sexual abuse and homosexuals, I find the following to be so:
Even the most screechingly homophobic, wrist-flapping, family-valued, save-the-buggered-children, neo-con, religious whack-job sites can’t bring themselves to attribute more than 1/3 of abuse cases to homosexuals. And as everyone with an IQ higher than celery knows, it ain’t John Doe we should worry about, it’s Uncle Joe.
I wrote an article about this case back when it came out at the trial court level. I talked with both the prosecuting attorney for the case and the ACLU. A few things to keep in mind.
The prosecutors involved in the case are just doing their job. A law has been written. A law has been broken. The prosecutors are prosecuting. You can say that they have discretion on who to prosecute and that would be partially correct. I’d rather blame this on Phil Kline, who has ultimate say and considers the prosecution and 18 year conviction of a retarded kid a “major victory.”
What we’re talking about are two different laws. KSA 21-3505 carries with it a maximum sentence of 19 years. KSA 21-3522, better known as the “Romeo and Juliet” laws, applies only when the people are of opposite sex and the maximum penalty is 13 months. KSA 21-3522 was passed in 1999.
My point here is this: if the ACLU challenges this second statute and WINS, it could very well backfire. The court could say “you’re right. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is unconstitutional. Kansas Legislators, you need to change it.”
The legislature could either grant the same protection to everyone under the new law…or repeal it and grant everyone the same protection again under the old one. That wouldn’t help Limon. That wouldn’t help anyone. Because now everyone charged could face up to 19 years in prison. Or, rather, everyone they choose to charge. Imagine who that would be…
I think a new, more realistic and just law, needs to be drafted, and the draft approved. Once the draft is just right, the current one should be struck down, to be quickly replaced with the draft. I think that the Romeo and Juliet law should apply to everyone the same, and that the punishment should be somewhere in between the 2 starkly contrasted ones now. The age of the offender should be considered, I don’t think a lovesick 18 year old should be punished as harshly as a 50 year old for instance. (If the child was 14 or over, that is.) There needs to be a better, more common sense law in place.
Prosecutors among us, riddle me this: If you’re assigned a case in which you don’t believe by your boss, are you required to take it and argue it? Is there no recourse by which an underling may say “I don’t agree that we should continue to prosecute this case and I don’t want to be involved”? If so, then I place blame on the underlings who continued to prosecute the case after it was ordered back for reconsideration as well as Phil Kline.
If the penalty is equal regardless of the sex of the participants and in the enforcement and sentencing then I have no problem with setting the maximum penalty high in both cases (although 19 years is IMHO unreasonable). If a pattern of unequal enforcement is seen then that is a separate issue.
The Kansas state legislature passes a “Romeo & Juliet” law that lowers penalties for underage sex if the partners are teenagers who are of the opposite sex and are close in age.
The ACLU, and other fair-minded people are screaming holy hell because a twisted, warped, predatory, depraved, mentally deranged 3 time offender received a 17 year sentence as opposed to the lighter “Romeo & Juliet” guidelines of 15 months.
Well too fuckin bad. Matthew Limon’s deviant actions have already destroyed 3 young boys lives & probably shattered 4 families. Enough already.
He’s not an icon.
He’s not a martyr.
He’s a pile of shit.
Why would anyone want to use this waste of DNA as a metaphor for injustice? Instead of screaming homophobia, why not call for the legislative repeal of KSA 21-3522 on the grounds the sentencing guidelines are far too lenient? Ask any parent of a sexually abused 14 year old what they thought of a law that lets their child’s attacker off with a 39 week sentence and you’d get an earful.
Like it or not, the courts & legislatures throughout this country make value judgments every day…and it’s not fair nor just. If you crack someone’s skull open and steal their wallet, you go to jail on assault, battery and robbery charges. But if you bust someone’s nose open and call them a racial epithet, you’re going up the river for a much longer sentence under mandated hate crime sentencing guidelines.
How the fuck does a consensual blow job destroy a boy’s life and shatter a family? How is it deviant? You are one dumb fucker with perhaps the worst case of internalized homophobia I’ve ever witnessed…
Um… how was it consensual? A fourteen-year old cannot consent.
That said, I certainly agree that homosexual acts should not be punished more severely than similar heterosexual acts. In no way does that mean I think the 18-year-old’s actions are without blame – he has no business having sex with a 14-year-old of either gender.
The law is quite clear that underage persons cannot legally consent to sexual activity. If you think it’s acceptable for any 14 year old person to participate in oral sex with a grown person of any gender, then it is you who are the dumb fucker.
The “grown person” in this case was only four years older than the “victim.” I think that’s an enourmously mitigating factor. Enough so that the Kansas legislature decided that straight people should be able to get away with it with a much reducred sentence.
A mentally-retarded just turned 18 year old is hardly a “grown person.” Don’t be dimwitted. The state may say he can’t give legal consent; but you know well and good that 14 year olds consent to blow jobs on a regular basis. Hell, that’s a freshman in high school age. Are you really so naive as to think that schoolers have no libido? If it had been an 18 year old young woman giving head to the boy I seriously doubt you would think an 18 year sentence is reasonable. You’d probably be giving the boy a slap on the back.
I’m not surprised by Bricker’s worship of the law over common sense, but I had thought friedo was a little more intelligent that his response here suggests.
Woo, HB, I thought that was meant to be me. Or do you just toss out that slam against anyone who disagrees with the essential rightness of all your views? :dubious:
Tell you what: I’ll post what my opinions are, and you post what your opinions are. Don’t try to spend whatever limited mental faculties you possess trying to post MY opinions for me.
I never said an 18 year sentence is reasonable. All I said was that I certainly agree that homosexual acts should not be punished more severely than similar heterosexual acts. For the record, an 18-year-old woman has no business having sex with a 14-year-old boy.
It sounds like you don’t agree with either the concept of age-of-consent at all, or you believe the lines are improperly drawn. Take it up with your state’s legislature.
I understand there is a difference between force and the lack of force, and certainly support a milder, Romeo and Juliet (or Romeo and Samson, I suppose) approach to statutory sex crimes that involve no force. But I don’t hold the actors blameless. REGARDLESS of their sexual orientation.
An 18-year-old woman has no business having sex with a 14-year-old boy, and an 18-year-old man has no business having sex with a 14-year-old boy, and an 18-year-old woman has no business having sex with a 14-year-old girl, and an 18-year-old man has no business having sex with a 14-year-old girl.
Is that your official coming out? Because John is gay; yet he calls Limon a deviant for giving a boy a blow job. How else would you interpret that other than internalized homophobia? Furthermore, saying someone has internalized homophobia is not calling them a homophobe. It’s a sign they’ve accepted the negative attitudes towards them. It’s more to be pitied than eviscerated. Bigots, however, deserve the scorn I heap.
You are seriously obtuse. When your opinions equate homosexuality with deviance or being “unnatural”, when you support biggoted laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation, when you use derogatory language, when you call me unfit to be a parent, when you say I can’t be trusted to be a Big Brother or Scout Leader, then I will point out the simple fact that you are a bigot. There are 40,000 members on this board. I’ve only leveled the charge of homophobia towards a scant few, and all of those were in cases where the poster had expressed anti-gay sentiments.
Erm, he called Limon a deviant for giving a fourteen-year-old boy a blowjob. It takes a great deal of “interpretation” to infer that homophobia (internalised or otherwise) is at the root of the accusation. Take a step back; no-one in this entire thread has suggested that the homosexuality of the offence should entail a higher sentence. JohnBckWLD merely expressed the view that this was nonetheless a serious and worrying offence, and is generally unsuited for use in the vanguard of an equal protection movement. I think he has a point, and it’s not one that’s inconsistent with supporting the broader ACLU case.
