Cite as: 517 U. S. 620 (1996)
Syllabus
from injuries caused by discrimination in a wide range of public and private transactions. Pp. 626-631. (b) In order to reconcile the Fourteenth Amendment's promise that no person shall be denied equal protection with the practical reality that most legislation classifies for one purpose or another, the Court has stated that it will uphold a law that neither burdens a fundamental right nor targets a suspect class so long as the legislative classification bears a rational relation to some independent and legitimate legislative end. See, e. g., Heller v. Doe, 509 U. S. 312, 319-320. Amendment 2 fails, indeed defies, even this conventional inquiry. First, the amendment is at once too narrow and too broad, identifying persons by a single trait and then denying them the possibility of protection across the board. This disqualification of a class of persons from the right to obtain specific protection from the law is unprecedented and is itself a denial of equal protection in the most literal sense. Second, the sheer breadth of Amendment 2, which makes a general announcement that gays and lesbians shall not have any particular protections from the law, is so far removed from the reasons offered for it, i. e., respect for other citizens' freedom of association, particularly landlords or employers who have personal or religious objections to homosexuality, and the State's interest in conserving resources to fight discrimination against other groups, that the amendment cannot be explained by reference to those reasons; the amendment raises the inevitable inference that it is born of animosity toward the class that it affects. Amendment 2 cannot be said to be directed to an identifiable legitimate purpose or discrete objective. It is a status-based classification of persons undertaken for its own sake, something the Equal Protection Clause does not permit. Pp. 631-636. 882 P. 2d 1335, affirmed.
Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Thomas, J., joined, post, p. 636.
Timothy M. Tymkovich, Solicitor General of Colorado, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Gale A. Norton, Attorney General, Stephen K. ErkenBrack, Chief Deputy Attorney General, John Daniel Dailey and Paul Farley, Deputy Attorneys General, and Rex E. Lee and Carter G. Phillips, Special Assistant Attorneys General.
Jean E. Dubofsky argued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief for respondents Evans et al. were Rod-
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