In February 2000, a week after his eighteenth birthday, Kansas resident Matthew R. Limon engaged in a consensual act of oral sex with a 14-year-old boy. Both were residents of a home for the mentally disabled. The difference in their ages at the time of the act was three years, one month and a number of days. Under the state's Romeo and Juliet law (K.S.A. § 21-3522), the penalties for statutory rape are less severe if the incident involves two teenagers. The Kansas statute specifically excluded same-sex sexual conduct.K.S.A. § 21-3522 as passed by the Kansas Legislature reads "(a) Unlawful voluntary sexual relations is engaging in voluntary: (1) sexual intercourse; (2) sodomy; or (3) lewd fondling or touching with a child who is 14 years of age but less than 16 years of age and the offender is less than 19 years of age and less than four years of age older than the child and child and the offender are the only parties involved and are members of the opposite sex." Because of this exclusion, Limon was charged under K.S.A. § 21-3505(a)(2) with criminal sodomy.
