Wichita ? Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline was addressing only sexual intercourse, not other sexual activities, when he issued an opinion that required mandatory reporting by health care professionals and others of consensual sex by underage adolescents, an attorney for his office told a federal judge Tuesday.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Camille Nohe said Kline’s opinion had been misunderstood since it was issued. She told U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten to read it.

“I have read the opinion – repeatedly,” a visibly angry Marten snapped back.

Under intense questioning by the judge, Nohe said the attorney general’s office intended only mandatory reporting of “higher level criminal offenses.”

That prompted Marten to ask her: “Do we not all get to rely on what the opinion says?”

Nohe told the judge the attorney general’s opinion speaks for itself. Kline is expected to testify Friday.

The lawsuit being tried stems from Kline’s 2003 opinion that says the state’s 1982 reporting statute requires health care providers and others to tell law enforcement officials or the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services about underage sex, even if it is consensual. Kline contended the reporting was required because such sex inherently involves abuse of a child.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group, sued, arguing that forced reporting discourages adolescents from seeking counseling or treatment, intrudes on their privacy and is unconstitutionally vague. In Kansas, the age of consent is 16.

The exchange with the judge came during Nohe’s cross-examination of Sandra Hazlett, director of SRS’s Children and Family Services in Kansas.

During questioning, Nohe had characterized the attorney general’s opinion as applying only to sexual intercourse with minors – a characterization that Bonnie Scott Jones, attorney for the advocacy group, contended was misleading.