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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