{
  "id": "96-575",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "96-575",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 316344,
      "date": "1996-06-21",
      "retrieved": "2016-05-24T21:02:08.841941",
      "title": "Homosexuality and the Federal Constitution: A Legal Analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court Ruling in Romer v. Evans",
      "summary": "This document also available in  PDF Image .\n  The U.S. Supreme Court this term in  Romer v. Evans , decided 6 to 3 that the State\n of Colorado\nviolated the right of lesbians and homosexuals to Equal Protection of the Laws when it adopted, by\nvoter referendum, Amendment 2 to the State Constitution. That amendment rescinded various state\nand local laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of \"homosexual, lesbian or bisexual\norientation\" and barred the statutory enactment of any such civil rights protection in the future. \nJustice Kennedy's majority opinion affirmed the judgment but not the rationale of the Colorado\nSupreme Court which had applied \"strict scrutiny\" to invalidate Amendment 2 based on a\n\"fundamental rights\" analysis. Instead, the Kennedy-led majority applied a \"rationality\" standard\nto hold that the \"broad and undifferentiated disability of a single named group\" was irrational and\ncould not be justified by any legitimate state interest.\n   Bowers v. Hardwick  was not mentioned by the  Romer  majority. In\n  Bowers , a decade earlier\nthe Court refused, by a 5 to 4 vote, to find that any constitutionally recognized \"liberty\" interest was\ncontravened by a Georgia State law penalizing homosexual sodomy.  Bowers  was a\n\"conduct\" case\nseeking, in effect, due process protection from state prosecution for homosexual acts rather than\nsafeguards against discrimination by the state based on sexual \"orientation.\" The comprehensive\nnature of the legal disability visited upon the \"isolated group\" disadvantaged by Amendment 2, and\nthe \"unique\" circumstances of its enactment, may also serve to distinguish and diminish the force\nof  Romer  in other legal and statutory contexts.\n  \n  The possible fragility of the  Bowers  precedent, and  Romer's  silence\n as to its status, could lead\nto future litigation on a variety of fronts.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
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          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/96-575",
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      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "American Law",
    "Constitutional Questions"
  ]
}