I meant to blog about this yesterday, but was wrapped up in real estate when it came in to the Just as I thought newsroom, teletypes dinging and lights flashing.
The Kansas Supreme Court yesterday struck down a state law that penalized same-sex statutory rapes by 18-year-olds much more harshly than heterosexual cases, ruling that the law unconstitutionally discriminated against gays.
In a 6 to 0 opinion, the court said its decision was required by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas , a landmark victory for gay rights that abolished all state laws criminalizing sodomy between consenting adults.
Under the logic of the Kansas ruling, “not only this law but a lot of other laws that treat gay people badly would fall,” said James D. Esseks, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Gay and Lesbian Rights Project.
Esseks acknowledged, however, that only one other state, Texas, has a statutory rape law like Kansas’s. There are no court challenges pending in Texas. The Kansas ruling would not apply in another state.
Esseks argued the case on behalf of Matthew Limon, who will be released after serving five years of a 17-year sentence under the Kansas law. His sentence would have been 15 months at most if he had been convicted of a heterosexual act.
Ah, but of course, the right wing is trotting out the old “judicial activism” cry once again. Ugh.
“The court acted like a legislature when it attempted to rewrite the statute,” said Mathew Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, a conservative litigation organization that supported Kansas in the case.
It’s really becoming tiresome, this constant bleating from the right when they lose an unsupportable argument. They act like little children who lose a stupid bet, then whine and complain that it’s a gyp or it wasn’t fair and they want a do-over.
The judiciary — at least, until they finally succeed in stacking it with their fellow travelers — is there to overturn laws. That’s what it’s for. It’s called checks and balances; a concept that the far right is so obviously uncomfortable with, given their many — and sometimes successful — attempts to overcome the checks that were put in place by the founders. Their strategy is to create a judiciary that cannot overturn any law, leaving the legislature all powerful. Um, whoa. That’s where such ridiculous, discriminatory, and just plain stupid laws come from in the first place.
The Kansas legislature and lower court used the “someone think of the children!” defense for this law; the Kansas Supreme Court, in a strange burst of logic, invalidated that defense and made a startling statement:
Kansas’s lower appeals court once again upheld the law, finding it constitutional because it was connected to the state’s interests in protecting the normal sexual development of children and preventing sexually transmitted diseases.
But the Kansas Supreme Court said that, under Lawrence , Kansas may not use its laws to express “moral disapproval” of homosexuality — denying any “rational basis” for the Kansas law’s distinction between homosexual and heterosexual acts.
“Neither the court of appeals nor the state cites any scientific research or other evidence justifying the position that homosexual sexual activity is more harmful to minors than adults,” the court said.
Kansas, the state that puts creationism right up there in the classroom, has a supreme court that rules using evidence! And there’s no evidence that homosexual activity is more harmful.
I love it when logic and reason wins the day.
