Spin the bottle, go to jail?

IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE PARENTS who would want their teenage children arrested for confiding in a teacher or school nurse about French-kissing. Yet, taken to its extreme -- and the Kansas attorney general is about as extreme as they come -- that could happen under the contested interpretation of a wrong-minded state law.

The 1982 law prohibits sexual activity by people younger than 16 -- even consensual activity between those that young. Intercourse isn’t the only banned activity; practically anything beyond a chaste peck qualifies. It’s hard to imagine what the Kansas Legislature intended by this, but it’s doubtful lawmakers envisioned police raiding the back rows and balconies of movie theaters.

Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline, who has long followed an activist antiabortion line, issued an interpretation of the law three years ago that requires doctors, therapists, teachers and others to report underage sex to the state Department of Social Services once a youngster tells them about it. Kline is essentially treating all underage sexual activity as a form of child molestation, a crime that does require reporting by professionals who come into contact with children. Kline’s radical notion is being challenged in a lawsuit being heard this week.

Legally, the state of Kansas is staking out weird territory. Molestation has a predator and a victim. Under the Kansas teen-sex law, the predator is the victim and vice versa. The state law on reporting molestation specifies that the sexual act needs to have been harmful to the minor, giving doctors the leeway not to report a 15-year-old girl who seeks birth control because she’s in a long-term relationship with her 18-year-old boyfriend.

Kline argues that all sexual activity by those younger than 16 is by definition harmful and therefore subject to the reporting requirements. He is entitled to his personal opinion, but this smacks of prosecutorial overreach. On a practical level, Kline’s apparent intent is to scare teenagers out of seeking birth control and abortions.

His legal stretch, though, also would scare teenagers out of asking for the guidance of an adult who might keep them from getting deeper into a harmful relationship. Or it could encourage more unsafe sex among teens, leading to a greater incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Kansas also could put responsible and caring adults in the position of rejecting teens’ confidences, lest they hear something they might have to report.

Most adults would prefer to see adolescents wait to have sexual intercourse until they are more mature. But most adults also know that many teens will explore their sexuality anyway. The greater harm lies in isolating teens from medical care and the help of teachers and counselors.