The Best Days of His Life

Good news this week. Matthew Limon, the 18 year old who was jailed in Kansas for performing consensual oral sex on a 15 year old boy, does not have to serve his 17 year sentence and was finally set free. The bad news is that it took over five years and multiple refused appeals for this to happen. Believe it, this kid has been in jail for five years not because he blew a minor (that only results in 18 months if you are a heterosexual) but because he blew a minor boy.

The craziness of this case for me is why? Don't get me wrong, rules are rules and we have to protect our youth from dodgy folks who would want nothing more than to lie cheat and steal their way into a tender boy's pants. Especially when the little thing isn't armed with the necessary information to protect himself (the benefits of a good broad based sex education in the moral halls of the Kansas school system is a topic for a different post.) I am also not naive to think that the courts in these cases are considering Mr. Limon specifically when determining their verdict but rather what the larger precedent will be should they agree or dissent. Although, in truth, Lawrence v. Kansas earlier this decade did nothing to help poor Matthew.

But it was the reasoning behind the larger sentence that has me miffed. The lawyers would have you believe that the homosexual act must be considered in a graver light because of the higher risk of transmitting AIDS and other STD's. The homosexual act, it seems, carries with it a higher emotional brand that leaves a deeper emotional scar than heterosexual statuatory rape. As assumed card carrying members of pestilence and destruction, an act of barely-legal boy on boy oral sex can be equivalent to armed robbery or aggravated assault. Are we never going to get out from under this rock?

The case also reminded me of how much we are feared. Despite second class citizenship, we continue to wield some power over the social structure of relationships. Because if we don't allow the courts to dole harsher punishment for gay sex crimes, what's next? We'll want to get married. In a brief filed in the case, Phill Kline, the Kansas attorney general, said a ruling in Mr. Limon's favor would "begin a toppling of dominoes which is likely to end in the Kansas marriage law on the scrap heap." That's right, you could say Mr. Limon could blow the whole thing.

In the end, the most ironic thing for me in this case is how in an effort to protect one boy's youth, the courts have taken away another's. Mr. Limon has not spent his early 20's in a dorm room or college campus. He has not spent a Spring Break in the Keys or backpacked in Europe. He has not worked for peanuts to support a boho art thing or found young love. He was in jail. And even if Matthew Limon was ultimately vindicated, wasn't that the overriding point that the Kansas lawyers taught and hit home to a watching world? Being gay can cost you your youth.