Romer v. Evans(1996): 14th A., Gay Discrimination, political participation

t Colorado voters adopted A. 2 to their State Constitution precluding any judicial, legislative, or executive action designed to protect persons from discrimination based on their "homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships." Does A. 2 of Colorado's State Constitution, forbidding the extension of official protections to those who suffer discrimination due to their sexual orientation, violate the 14^th A's Equal Protection Clause?

n Majority: KENNEDY: Yes. The Court held that A 2 singled out homosexualand bisexual persons, imposing on them a broad disability by denying them the right to seek and receive specific legal protection from discrimination. Kennedynoted oftentimes a law will be sustained under the equal protection clause, even if it seems to disadvantage a specific group, so long as it can be shown to "advance a legitimate government interest." "If the constitutional conception of 'equal protection of the laws' means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest."

n Dissent: SCALIA, REHNQUIST, THOMAS: The constitutional amendment before us here is not the manifestation of a "`bare . . . desire to harm'" homosexuals, but is rather a modest attempt by seemingly tolerant Coloradans to preserve traditional sexual mores against the efforts of a politically powerful minority to revise those mores through use of the laws. That objective, and the means chosen to achieve it, are not only unimpeachable under any constitutional doctrine hitherto pronounced (hence the opinion's heavy reliance upon principles of righteousness rather than judicial holdings); they have been specifically approved by the Congress and by this Court.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 680