Opinion ID: 76424
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Romer v. Evans

Text: 59 Finally, we disagree with appellants' contention that Romer requires us to strike down the Florida statute. In Romer, the Supreme Court invalidated Amendment 2 to the Colorado state constitution, which prohibited all legislative, executive, or judicial action designed to protect homosexual persons from discrimination. 517 U.S. 620, 624, 116 S.Ct. 1620, 1623, 134 L.Ed.2d 855 (1996). The constitutional defect in Amendment 2 was the disjunction between the [s]weeping and comprehensive classification it imposed on homosexuals and the state's asserted bases for the classification — respect for freedom of association and conservation of resources to fight race and gender discrimination. Id. at 627, 116 S.Ct. at 1625. The Court concluded that the Amendment's sheer breadth is so discontinuous with the reasons offered for it that the amendment seems inexplicable by anything but animus toward the class it affects. Id. at 632, 116 S.Ct. at 1627. 60 Unlike Colorado's Amendment 2, Florida's statute is not so [s]weeping and comprehensive as to render Florida's rationales for the statute inexplicable by anything but animus toward its homosexual residents. Amendment 2 deprived homosexual persons of protections against exclusion from an almost limitless number of transactions and endeavors that constitute ordinary civic life in a free society. Id. at 631, 116 S.Ct. at 1627. In contrast to this broad and undifferentiated disability, the Florida classification is limited to the narrow and discrete context of access to the statutory privilege of adoption 27 and, more importantly, has a plausible connection with the state's asserted interest. Id. at 632, 116 S.Ct. at 1627. Moreover, not only is the effect of Florida's classification dramatically smaller, but the classification itself is narrower. Whereas Amendment 2's classification encompassed both conduct and status, id. at 624, 116 S.Ct. at 1623 (quoting the text of Amendment 2, which covered homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships), Florida's adoption prohibition is limited to conduct, see Cox, 627 So.2d at 1215. Thus, we conclude that Romer 's unique factual situation and narrow holding are inapposite to this case.