# Colorado Amendment 2 (1992) A state constitutional amendment passed by Colorado voters on **November 3, 1992** with **53% support** that would have **repealed existing local LGBTQ-rights ordinances** in Aspen, Boulder, and Denver and **prohibited any future state, county, or municipal anti-discrimination protections** on the basis of sexual orientation. Amendment 2 was the **most ambitious anti-LGBTQ ballot measure in U.S. history at the time** and the direct legal predicate for ***[[Romer v. Evans]]*** (1996), the first Supreme Court victory for gay-rights advocates. ## What Amendment 2 Would Have Done The amendment text, designated as Article II Section 30b of the Colorado Constitution: > Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities or school districts, shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination. The amendment was designed by **Colorado for Family Values (CFV)**, a coalition led by evangelical pastor Tony Marco and political operative Will Perkins, drawing on the [[Save Our Children Campaign]] model. The deliberate framing was that anti-LGBTQ ordinances constituted "special rights" rather than equal-protection guarantees — a rhetorical framing that became the standard right-wing critique of LGBTQ-rights legislation through the subsequent decades. ## The Vote and Immediate Consequences The November 3, 1992 vote (53.4% to 46.6%) produced immediate consequences: - **A nationwide tourism boycott of Colorado** — Hollywood celebrities including Barbra Streisand, the city of Atlanta, and several conventions and trade shows canceled Colorado visits or refused to schedule new events in the state - **Aspen, Boulder, and Denver immediately challenged the amendment** in state and federal court, with [[Lambda Legal]] taking lead litigating role - **The amendment was enjoined from taking effect** by the Colorado Supreme Court in 1993 (*Evans v. Romer*), which held it likely violated the federal Equal Protection Clause ## Romer v. Evans (1996) The federal litigation reached the U.S. Supreme Court in *[[Romer v. Evans]]* (decided **May 20, 1996**, 6-3, Kennedy authoring). The Court struck down Amendment 2 as a violation of the [[Fourteenth Amendment]]'s Equal Protection Clause — the **first Supreme Court victory for gay-rights advocates** in U.S. history and the doctrinal foundation for all subsequent Kennedy-era LGBTQ-rights decisions through *Obergefell* (2015). ## Place in the Vault Amendment 2 is the **high-water mark of the 1990s state-level anti-LGBTQ ballot-measure wave** — the campaign that produced the constitutional confrontation the LGBTQ-rights legal-strategy movement needed to establish the Equal Protection Clause's applicability to sexual-orientation discrimination. Its passage and subsequent reversal in *Romer* is the canonical 1990s example of how a successful anti-LGBTQ ballot measure can produce the conditions for its own reversal through federal-constitutional litigation. --- ## See Also - [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] - [[Queer Liberation Timeline]] - [[Romer v. Evans]] - [[Save Our Children Campaign]] - [[California Proposition 8]]