Q1: What area of law does Romer v. Evans primarily address?
Constitutional Law
Q2: What was the central legal issue in Romer v. Evans?
Does Colorado's Amendment 2, which prohibits all state and local governmental action protecting persons from discrimination based on sexual orientation, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Q3: What rule did the court apply?
Under the Equal Protection Clause, a law that singles out a class of persons and imposes a broad disability on that class must, at minimum, bear a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. A "bare... desire to harm a politically unpopular group" cannot constitute such a purpose, and laws of unusual breadth targeting a specific group may reveal impermissible animus and fail even rational basis review.
Q4: What was the court's holding?
Yes. Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause because it classifies homosexual and bisexual persons to make them unequal to everyone else and is not rationally related to any legitimate state interest.
Q5: Why is Romer v. Evans significant?
Romer crystallizes the modern "animus" doctrine: laws targeting a politically unpopular group cannot rest on mere moral disapproval or a desire to disadvantage that group. The case is a prime example of "rational basis with bite," showing that even under deferential review the Court will invalidate measures whose breadth and structure signal an impermissible purpose. For students, Romer is essential to understanding how Equal Protection analysis can police status-based, across-the-board disabilities without classifying the targeted group as a suspect or quasi-suspect class. Doctrinally, Romer laid crucial groundwork for later LGBTQ+ rights decisions by rejecting anti-gay measures justified only by moral disapproval and by emphasizing equal access to ordinary legal protections. It is frequently cited alongside Moreno and Cleburne in Equal Protection courses to illustrate how courts scrutinize motivations, fit, and legislative breadth under rational basis review.