Lesbian & Gay Rights and AIDS Projects
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Fax: (212) 549-2650
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For Immediate Release
August 16, 2004 |
Contact
Paul Cates, (212) 549-2568
Dick Kurtenbach, (816) 756-3113 |
Social Workers Speak Out on Behalf of Gay Teen Sentenced
to 17 Years in Prison
TOPEKA , KS – In a friend-of-the-court brief being filed tomorrow,
the National Association of Social Workers and its Kansas chapter
are joining the American Civil Liberties Union in asking the Kansas
Supreme Court to reverse the conviction of a teenager who is serving
a prison sentence 13 times longer than he would have received if
he were heterosexual.
“The state claims that the much harsher sentence Matthew Limon received
is justified for reasons that we as social workers know aren't valid,” said
Dorthy Stucky Halley, president of the Kansas chapter of the NASW.
She added, “One's sexual orientation could never justify 16 additional
years in jail.”
In its brief, the 153,000 member organization of professional social
workers debunks the state's claims that the length of Limon's sentence
is justified because young people who engage in same-sex intimacy
are so impressionable that they may be swayed into becoming gay.
The NASW points to social science evidence that same-sex attractions
surface much earlier in life – well before puberty – and that one
gay sexual experience can't make someone “turn” gay.
“For professionals who are experts in social policy and who base
their careers on human compassion to speak out on this young man's
behalf just goes to show how wrong it is for the state of Kansas
to treat gay teenagers so much more harshly than their heterosexual
peers,” said Dick Kurtenbach, Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas
and Western Missouri.
In February of 2000, Limon and another male teenager were both students
at the same residential school for developmentally disabled youth
in Miami County , Kansas . A week after Limon's 18th birthday,
he performed consensual oral sex on the other teenager, who was nearly
15 years old – three years, one month and a few days younger. Because
Kansas 's so-called “Romeo and Juliet” law gives much lighter sentences
to heterosexual teenagers who have sex with younger teens but specifically
excludes gay teenagers, Limon was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
A heterosexual teenager with the same record would serve no longer
than 15 months for the same offense.
After the Kansas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in January,
the Kansas Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on August 31. The
ACLU had taken Limon's case back to the lower court after the U.S.
Supreme Court ordered the court to reconsider the matter in light
of the Supreme Court's decision last summer in Lawrence v. Texas
, which struck down all same-sex-only sodomy laws.
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is the largest
membership organization of professional social workers in the world,
with 153,000 members. NASW works to enhance the professional growth
and development of its members, to create and maintain professional
standards, and to advance sound social policies.
A backgrounder on the case is available online
at:
http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=14476&c=41
More information on how the U.S. Supreme Court sent this case back
to the Kansas Court of Appeals can be read here:
http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=13033&c=41
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