The decision also marked a new level of legal respect for LGBT people and rejected the notion that it is legitimate for the government to discriminate against gay people based on moral objections to homosexuality. 1, National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Romer_v._Evans&oldid=983657535, American Civil Liberties Union litigation, Anti-discrimination law in the United States, Discrimination against LGBT people in the United States, United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Preliminary injunction granted to plaintiffs, 1993. Lacking any cases to establish that facially absurd proposition, it simply asserts that it must be unconstitutional, because it has never happened before. Sustaining the interim injunction and remanding the case for further proceedings, the State Supreme Court held that Amendment 2 was subject to strict scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment because it infringed the fundamental right of gays and lesbians to participate in the political process. The first is Colorado Executive Order D0035 (1990), which forbids employment discrimination against "'all state employees, classified and exempt' on the basis of sexual orientation." See 1971 Colo. Sess. That in itself is a severe consequence, but there is more. Since the Constitution of the United States says nothing about this subject, it is left to be resolved by normal democratic means, including the democratic adoption of provisions in state constitutions. The imbalance between the narrowly identified class and the breadth of the protections denied made him especially suspicious of a desire to harm homosexuals and an insidious attempt to insulate an impermissible law from judicial review. At trial, the court enjoined enforcement of the law finding it unconstitutional. Amendment 2 was narrowly tailored to serve compelling interests, but the trial court found none sufficient. What gave rise to the statewide controversy was the protection the ordinances afforded to persons discriminated against by reason of their sexual orientation. III, § 1. Timothy M. Tymkovich, Solicitor General of Colorado, argued the cause for petitioners. ); marital or family status, § 24-34-502(1)(a), lOA C. R. S. (1994 Supp. Justia makes no guarantees or warranties that the annotations are accurate or reflect the current state of law, and no annotation is intended to be, nor should it be construed as, legal advice. The phenomenon had even appeared statewide: The Governor of Colorado had signed an executive order pronouncing that "in the State of Colorado we recognize the diversity in our pluralistic society and strive to bring an end to discrimination in any form," and directing state agencyheads to "ensure non-discrimination" in hiring and promotion based on, among other things, "sexual orientation." See Railroad Retirement Bd. But it prohibits giving them favored status because of their homosexual conduct-that is, it prohibits favored status for homosexuality. The trial court's grant of a preliminary injunction was sustained by the Colorado Supreme Court, which held that Amendment 2 was subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it infringed the fundamental right of gays and lesbians to participate in the political process. The amendment created a "special disability upon those persons alone," he added. Not confined to the private sphere, Amendment 2 also operates to repeal and forbid all laws or policies providing specific protection for gays or lesbians from discrimination by every level of Colorado government. Justice Kennedy opened his decision with the following statement: In order to determine whether or not the amendment violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the justices applied strict scrutiny. [1] It was the first Supreme Court case to address gay rights since Bowers v. Hardwick (1986),[2] when the Court had held that laws criminalizing sodomy were constitutional. These statutes and ordinances also depart from the common law by enumerating the groups or persons within their ambit of protection. Know the laws in your state that protect LGBT people and people living with HIV. The Court also found that Amendment 2 invalidated existing protections for members of the LGBTQ community. Red Sox Numbers Retired, Or again, it does not affect the requirement of the State's general insurance laws that customers be afforded coverage without discrimination unrelated to anticipated risk. ); marital or family status, § 24-34-502(1)(a), lOA C. R. S. (1994 Supp. . We rely not upon our own interpretation of the amendment but upon the authoritative construction of Colorado's Supreme Court. See Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U. S. 24 (1974). [17], The case was argued on October 10, 1995. (1973). Richard G. Evans, an administrator in Denver, sued the governor and state over the passage of the amendment. It enjoined Amendment 2's enforcement, and the State Supreme Court affirmed. So much is evident from the ordinances the Colorado Supreme Court declared would be void by operation of Amendment 2. The measure was passed in 1992 by 53 percent of Colorado’s voters. Women's Rights Law Reporter, Vol. Later, the case was remanded by the Supreme Court for further consideration in 1997 in the wake of the Romer de… To the extent Davis held that a convicted felon may be denied the right to vote, its holding is not implicated by our decision and is unexceptionable. Amendment 2 repeals these ordinances to the extent they prohibit discrimination on the basis of "homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships." Const., Art. JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. To take the simplest of examples, consider a state law prohibiting the award of municipal contracts to relatives of mayors or city councilmen. Evans v. Romer, 854 P. 2d 1270 (Colo. 1993) (Evans I). Quite understandably, they devote this political power to achieving not merely a grudging social toleration, but full social acceptance, of homosexuality. We conclude that, in addition to the far-reaching deficiencies of Amendment 2 that we have noted, the principles it offends, in another sense, are conventional and venerable; a law must bear a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose, Kadrmas v. Dickinson Public Schools, 487 U. S. 450, 462 (1988), and Amendment 2 does not. It identifies persons by a single trait and then denies them protection across the board. Multiple municipalities in Colorado passed ordinances prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Even laws enacted for broad and ambitious purposes often can be explained by reference to legitimate public policies which justify the incidental disadvantages they impose on certain persons. See ante, at 630. It remains to be explained how § 501 of the Idaho Revised Statutes was not an "impermissible targeting" of polygamists, but (the much more mild) Amendment 2 is an "impermissible targeting" of homosexuals.
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