Romer v. Evans

Facts

In 1992 Colorado voters adopted a state constitutional amendment in a statewide referendum. It was called Amendment 2. Its impetus came in large part from ordinances passed in Colorado municipalities such as Aspen, Boulder and Denver. Those ordinances banned discrimination in many transactions and activities, including housing, employment, education, public accommodations, and health and welfare services, and they protected people who were discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. Amendment 2 repealed the ordinances to the extent they barred discrimination on that basis. It also barred the State and every local government and school district from enacting, adopting or enforcing any law or policy that would make homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships the basis of a minority status, quota preference, protected status or claim of discrimination. The amendment was self-executing. The Colorado Supreme Court read it, at a minimum, to repeal existing protections and to forbid similar or more protective ones unless the state constitution was first amended. The challengers included homosexual persons, some of them government employees, along with municipalities and other governmental entities whose protections the amendment would end. The State argued that the amendment only denied homosexuals special rights. Its primary rationale was respect for other citizens' freedom of association, especially landlords or employers with personal or religious objections to homosexuality. It also cited conserving resources to fight discrimination against other groups.

Issues

1. Does Amendment 2 to the Colorado Constitution, which bars all state and local government action to protect homosexual persons from discrimination, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
2. Does Amendment 2 bear a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose, or is it a classification drawn only to disadvantage the group it names?

Holding

Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause. It singles out homosexuals for a broad disability, and its breadth is so far removed from the State's justifications that it lacks a rational relationship to any legitimate state interest. The Court affirmed the Colorado Supreme Court's judgment, but on a rationale different from that court's strict-scrutiny rationale.