One Set of Rights for All

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decisive rejection of Colorado’s anti-gay amendment closes a nasty chapter in that state’s history. It should end as well other mean-spirited efforts in a handful of states to legalize discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Amendment 2, adopted by Colorado voters in 1992, was invalidated by the high court Monday in a 6-3 vote. The justices declared that the law violated the right of homosexuals to equal protection under the Constitution.

Amendment 2 would have stripped gays and lesbians of most legal shields against discrimination in jobs, housing and public accommodations, canceled gay rights ordinances in Denver, Boulder and Aspen and blocked enactment of other gay rights laws or policies in the state.

“We must conclude,” wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy for the majority, “that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A state cannot deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.”

But, astonishingly, that is exactly what Justice Antonin Scalia sought to sanction. In a blistering dissent (joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas), Scalia insisted that “Coloradans are .J.J. entitled to be hostile toward homosexual conduct.” Because the Constitution does not address homosexuality, he insisted, Coloradans are free to make policy on this subject provided they do so through democratic means. That they did by passing Amendment 2 with 53% of the vote. As a result, Scalia wrote, “today’s opinion has no foundation in American constitutional law, and barely pretends to.”

However, by that chilling logic could not a majority of Americans repeal fundamental constitutional protections for any identified group of Americans--blacks, women, the disabled--so long as they did so through the democratic process? Because Amendment 2 was challenged immediately after it was approved, the initiative has never been enforced.

The Supreme Court’s ruling should kill efforts in Idaho and Oregon to place measures similar to Amendment 2 on the ballot. Setting gays and lesbians legally apart under the color of “family values” is not only morally wrong, it is unconstitutional. Is this one emotional issue the nation can now put to rest? We hope so.