Thanks to the brilliant folks at Lunchbucket Creative, our savvy communications committee, and our media partners at Lamar, Comcast, and the Colorado Springs Independent CP’s new awareness has launched! Learn about the campaign, look for us, check out the video and photos below, and let us know what YOU think:
Summary by Ellen Slavitz
Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo. We believe they exist to make our lives more convenient, more interesting, more fun. According to Robert W. McChesney, these Internet marvels are the products of carefully designed operations that enable a small number of corporations to earn huge profits, while providing the public with less and less value, service, and information essential in a democratic society.
McChesney, a media activist and professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is the author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy and dozens of other publications in which he describes how the growing concentration of media ownership has decreased variety, competition, public interest, access and content quality. McChesney is also co-founder of Free Press, a media activist organization based in Washington DC that “advocates for universal and affordable Internet access, diverse media ownership, vibrant public media and quality journalism” (Freepress.net).
In his latest book, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy, McChesney meticulously documents how the Internet went from a non-commercial, seemingly utopian and democratic technology to its current mega-profit maker dominated by a small number of major players. He applies theories of political economy, “an understanding of capitalism and its relationship to democracy” (p. 13) to the evolution and current state of internet ownership and control. Continue reading
To have a truly ‘Business Friendly’ community is ensuring that our community is viewed as a truly inclusive and accepting community for all regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation; often, this is not the view many around the country hold of Colorado Springs. Perhaps we can ‘work this issue’ right here!
These small name badges are being offered as a means to generated enthusiasm for the idea of a community that truly is: Business Friendly.
If you want to join in and wear your ‘business friendly’ attitude on your shirt or suit and civic affairs, business meetings and as you travel, we will make available at, no charge, camera-ready artwork so your group members can have their own custom name badge. If your group does not have badge printing capability, we can provide you with the name of the shop who produces these for our employees and you can just order direct. You can email Donna at: project.unity (at) ymail.com
a personal commentary on Civil Unions by Kristy Milligan, Executive Director
If you ask anyone who knows me well, they’ll tell you. I cry at weddings. Big weddings, small weddings, family weddings, friend weddings, weddings of people I hardly know. It doesn’t matter. I cry.
Naturally then, I expected some tears and sniffles at this week’s local Civil Unions 
celebration, and sniffle I did. But as I walked through the blustery evening to my car and sat down, something completely unexpected happened. I sobbed. Inconsolably. Continue reading
“In Good Faith” addresses questions about beliefs, family and culture
Starting in May, leaders within the faith community of Colorado Springs will be contributing to a new column in the Colorado Springs Independent.
The bi-monthly advice column, “In Good Faith,” will debut on May 1st and will feature a candid but civil exchange between the Rev. Ahriana Platten, minister at Unity in the Rockies and Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family. The Rev. Benjamin Broadbent, senior minister at First Congregational Church, will engage Daly later in the month. Continue reading
by Ken Burrows
Reflections on How to Be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom by Jacques Berlinerblau
“Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance. Religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” — James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, 1822
“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” — John F. Kennedy, speech in Houston, 1960
“The ‘wall of separation between church and state’ is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.” — Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, dissenting in Wallace v. Jaffree, 1985
“Whatever the Establishment Clause means, it certainly does not mean that government cannot accommodate religion, and indeed favor religion.” — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, interviewed in Hamodia magazine, 2009
As the quotes above suggest, something has happened over the last couple of centuries, and even in the last half-century, to the concept of church-state separation as seen by America’s leading voices. How did this come about and what might it mean for the future? If it’s a trend, is it inexorable?
This past year Jacques Berlinerblau attempted to answer such questions in his book How to Be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom. One of its main theses is that secularism—defined by him as a philosophy wherein the state does not establish a religion or embrace an official preference for any—is in peril, and this peril is owed to extremism on both the right and the left, to both the fundamentally religious and the aggressively irreligious. In fact, in what may sound contradictory, he contends it is religious moderates that offer one of the best hopes of saving the secular state from demise.
Steven Jonas, a longtime member of the Citizens Project family, has recently re-released a futuristic novel titled “The 15% Solution,” which is available for purchase on Amazon. A full review is below:
Join Citizens Project and our friends at ONE Colorado on Wednesday, May 1 to celebrate the passage of civil unions in Colorado. Starting May 1, committed couples will be able to legally apply for civil unions licenses for the first time in state history.
Ceremonies: 6:00pm at City Hall (107 N. Nevada Ave.)
Community reception: 7:00pm at the Underground (110 N. Nevada Ave.)
To celebrate this victory in Colorado Springs, we’ll be holding civil union ceremonies on the stairs of City Hall, with Rev. Nori Rost of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church and Rev. Wes Mullins of Pikes Peak Metropolitan Community Church. Afterwards, we’ll gather across the street at the Underground for a community reception, some cake, music, and a celebration of civil unions.
All are welcome at both events and encouraged to celebrate this huge victory with their friends, family, loved ones, and the LGBTQA community.
if you are interested in getting a civil union at this event please contact Jessie Pocock at [email protected] To RSVP, please visit the event Facebook page
Colorado 2nd Lady Dr. Claire Oberon Garcia and Colorado State Senator Jessie Ulibarri will co-moderate a critical discussion “The Summit on the State of Us,” beginning at noon, Saturday, April 20, in Gaylord Hall at The Colorado College in Colorado Springs.
The Summit will address the status of African-Americans and Latinos in 5 key areas: Education, Economic Development, Health, Criminal Justice and Voting Rights. A panel discussion featuring some of the state’s leading thinkers will be followed by small group break-outs and reporting on next steps.The Summit will be videotaped for future broadcast.