Facts
- Several Colorado municipalities enacted ordinances barring discrimination based on sexual orientation in areas including housing, employment, education, and public accommodations.
- Colorado voters adopted “Amendment 2” to the state constitution, providing that neither the state nor its subdivisions could enact or enforce measures protecting persons based on homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices, or relationships.
- The Colorado Supreme Court construed Amendment 2 to repeal existing protections and to bar future protections unless the state constitution were amended again.
- Individuals and municipalities sued state officials, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief.
- State courts enjoined enforcement; the U.S. Supreme Court granted review.
Issues
- Whether Colorado’s Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause by withdrawing existing protections and barring future protections for persons identified by sexual orientation.
- Whether Amendment 2 can survive rational basis review given its breadth and targeted effect on a single group’s ability to obtain legal protections through ordinary political processes.
Decision
- The Supreme Court affirmed the injunction in a 6–3 decision (Justice Kennedy).
- The Court held Amendment 2 violated the Equal Protection Clause.
- The Court applied rational basis review, not strict scrutiny or suspect-class analysis.
- The Court concluded Amendment 2 lacked a rational relationship to legitimate state interests because it imposed a sweeping, targeted disability on one group.
- The Court rejected the State’s “special rights” justification as inconsistent with the amendment’s actual breadth and effects.
- Dissenting, Justice Scalia (joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Thomas) argued the amendment permissibly reflected moral disapproval and easily satisfied rational basis review.
Legal Principles
- Equal protection forbids laws that make it more difficult for one identified group than for all others to seek governmental protection through the ordinary political process.
- Under rational basis review, a law fails if it is best explained by a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group rather than by a legitimate governmental objective.
- A state may not impose an across-the-board denial of legal protections on a class defined by a single trait when the measure’s breadth is disconnected from the proffered justifications.
Conclusion
The Court invalidated Amendment 2 because it singled out gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons for a broad and unprecedented exclusion from legal protections and ordinary political recourse, and the measure could not be justified by any legitimate state interest under rational basis review.