Citizens Project

Tebowmania and Religious Freedom

28th December, 2011

This column by Kristy Milligan appeared in The Gazette on 12/27/11.

Citizens Project, a local organization dedicated to promoting and protecting equality, diversity and religious freedom through the separation of church and state, supports Tim Tebow’s right to celebrate God in the end zone.

That’s the thing about the First Amendment. The free speech and exercise clauses protect every private citizen. Religious freedom means religious freedom.

Citizens Project also has no fundamental objection to students exercising their right to assemble, pray, or “Tebow” in the hallways of their public schools, assuming they comply with conduct codes and safety standards.

Amid all this “Tebowmania,” however, we must draw an important distinction between the First Amendment rights of individuals and the responsibilities of government. Tebow, fans and students enjoy the free exercise of religion, but teachers and coaches must, by virtue of their employment contract, adhere to the restrictions set forth in the clause prohibiting a government establishment of religion.  Those who fail to do so risk exposing the institutions they serve to expensive litigation, while simultaneously alienating the students entrusted to their care.

In 2011, Citizens Project received calls from concerned parents, students, and teachers in almost every school district in the Pikes Peak region who wanted more information about how to address issues pertaining to religious expression at their schools. We heard about religious-based bullying, teacher condemnation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students on the basis of biblical teaching, assemblies and ceremonies that integrated religious themes, administrative interference in student club activity, and, most recently, coaches organizing and leading students in Christian prayer.

These aren’t isolated incidents.  For every call we get, there are probably ten students who suffer silently to avoid drawing attention to themselves. After all, they just want to succeed in classes, participate in extracurricular activities, and advance through the public education system. Sometimes the people who contact us resist Citizens Project’s help in negotiating the grievance process or initiating an educational outreach to the affected schools. They don’t want to risk becoming pariahs. They just want someone to tell them, “It’s not okay when the person who assigns your grades or decides when you get to play your favorite sport makes prayer obligatory or singles you out.”  And it’s not.

Religious formation is not the province of a public school official, and objections to compulsory religion in classrooms transcend political differences.

At Citizens Project, we won’t rest until every student can excel in a religiously neutral academic or athletic environment that neither advances nor denigrates religion. We will continue to monitor our local schools for problems and work with the administration to ensure they’re in compliance with the law. We’ll take calls about church-state issues in schools and we’ll offer our support to all parties involved, because we know that violations are usually unintentional. We’ll continue to educate teachers, administrators, students, parents and community members at our annual Citizens’ Religious Freedom Institute and offer continuing education credit to teachers.

Above all, we will stand with our students to ensure they have every chance at success through an inclusive and affirming academic environment that allows them to be exactly who they are, whether that means abstaining from the pledge or “Tebowing” on their lunch break.

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2011: The Year in Review

19th December, 2011

Thanks to Citizens Project’s inspired leadership, our volunteers, interns, collaborators, supporters and activists, 2011 was an incredible year! Below are just a few of the things we were able to accomplish with your help:

Awards

Citizens Project received several honors over the last year including: the Gay & Lesbian Fund Advancing Equality Award, “Ally of the Year” from the Colorado Springs Pride Center, and the “Steady and Strong for Diversity and Inclusion” award from the Colorado Springs Diversity Forum.

Events

Citizens Project events are more than fundraisers or friend-raisers; they’re community in action, bringing together people from across the region and across political and religious lines who share a few key values: equality, separation of church and state, diversity and civic engagement.

– More than 100 community members came out in sub-zero temperatures to honor local activist Mary Ellen McNally at Citizens Project’s 7th annual Divine Award Celebration.

- Four hundred attendees at our annual Creating  Community Breakfast joined together to raise $60,000 to increase Citizens Project’s impact in the community.

- Dozens of volunteers attended our twice-annual volunteer open house and staffed the Citizens Project booth at community events such as Everybody Welcome!, Juneteenth, Cinco de Mayo, and Pride Fest.

Collaboration

CP, in close collaboration with the Women’s Resource Agency, Inside/Out Youth Services and many more, worked to re-invigorate the Pikes Peak Equality Coalition, a group of local nonprofits dedicated to opportunity and access for all community members. Through our collective efforts, we made more than 3,000 contacts with voters in the general election cycle, reminding them to cast their ballots. In addition, CP was represented on the Public Affairs and Government Relations Committee of the Colorado Springs Diversity Forum, the Colorado Civic Engagement Roundtable, and the Safe Schools Coalition.  Citizens Project staff members Kristy Milligan and RoMa Johnson also  presented at events and classes statewide, including: Center for Nonprofit Excellence, UCCS, El Pomar, NAACP, and the Denver Mayor’s LGBT Commission. Citizens Project also donated 18 cubic feet of physical archive files to the Pikes Peak Library District’s Special Collections. The archives will be available to the the public and will be preserved for future generations.

Voter Education

2011 was an exciting year in local elections: from the April municipal election and subsequent mayoral runoff election, to the November general election, there were many candidates vying for the votes of Pikes Peak residents.  And Citizens Project continued our 19-year tradition of providing nonpartisan election education information for all local elections through well-attended Mayoral and City Council forums, and a School Board Candidate and ballot measure forum. In addition, we published two comprehensive candidate survey Voter Guides, one for the municipal election and one for the general election, which were distributed to more than 100,000 people in the Pikes Peak region through our website, a mailing to our supporters, and inclusion in the Colorado Springs Independent.

Promoting Dialogue & Awareness

Citizens Project distributed our electronic monthly Freedom Watch Online to more than 2,000 subscribers, providing them with in-depth analyses of local and national issues, opportunities to get involved, and more. Through our electronic Action Network, we sent 1,500 activists up-to-the-minute updates about pending legislation and electoral initiatives with information about how to make a positive impact on public policy.

Again this year, Citizens Project deployed an awareness campaign to stimulate conversation and tackle some of the most difficult issues facing our community. The campaign appeared in print, online, and on billboards, and it continues to create robust discussion on our blog.

CP also worked with a coalition of twenty five diverse faith and civic groups to present a special film screening to commemorate 9/11.

Creating Inclusive Learning Communities

Our second annual Citizens’ Religious Freedom Institute, a one-day seminar for teachers, administrators, students and community members on how the courts have interpreted church/state separation in public schools and how to promote religious freedom in the classroom, was well-attended and highly rated by participants. Many attendees received graduate credit or contact hours, and, as one participant said, it was a “very enjoyable, informative day.”

Again in 2011, Citizens Project mailed the Anti-Defamation League’s December Dilemma publication to 200 local schools, which contains information about inclusive holiday practices. This year we also worked with Inside/Out and the Safe @School Coalition to provide a primer on recently-passed HB1254, which expands protection from bullying to LGBT students. Additionally, we followed up with several high schools that held their graduation ceremonies at churches to help ensure future commencement celebrations that honor the unique faith traditions of all students, and comply with legal precedent regarding separation of church and state.

All of this was work to advance religious freedom, diversity, equality and civic engagement in the Pikes Peak region was possible because of the hundreds of active supporters, just like you, who gave time, money, energy and vision to help Citizens Project put our mission into motion. Thank you – and we’ll see you in 2012!

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Community Honors Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado

11th November, 2011

On November 10, scores of Colorado Springs residents gathered to honor the legacy of the Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado and to thank the organization and its staff for the positive difference they’ve made in the Pikes Peak region. Below are some photos of the parade and ensuing celebration, courtesy of Glenn.

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Citizens Project to Sponsor Health Insurance Forum

9th November, 2011

The CoPIRG Foundation will be hosting two public forums this month on affordable health insurance for Colorado Springs and El Paso County residents. The state of Colorado established the Colorado Health Benefits Exchange in June of this year with the goal of providing viable health insurance options for individuals and small businesses. In order to best benefit the needs of the community, CoPIRG is encouraging local residents to voice their opinions and let their healthcare needs be heard at these public forums.

Join the Citizens Project on November 17, 2011 to be a part of two separate discussions regarding this important issue!

Forum #1:

Penrose Library, Carnegie Room     

Noon to 1:30PM

Forum #2:

Kaiser Permanente, 1975 Research Parkway, Wayback Room (Second Floor)               

5:30-7PM    

For more information, visit CoPIRG’s website or call 970-563-4517.

Check out the event flyer!

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Citizens’ Religious Freedom Institute

31st October, 2011

Citizens Project is proud to present the third annual Citizens’ Religious Freedom Institute, a one day seminar on how the First Amendment to the US Constitution protects religious freedom in public schools. For teachers, students, parents, administrators, staff, school board members, and open to the public.

Saturday March 10, 2012

Colorado College, Slocum Commons

Participants will learn:

• How the law defines religious freedom in the public school setting,
• Best practices for respecting all students’ religious freedom, and
• How to be an advocate for religious freedom in your school.

In-service credit for teachers and graduate credit is available. Lunch, textbook and supplemental materials are provided to all participants.

To receive information about the Citizens’ Religious Freedom Institute, join our email list for Freedom Watch Online, email Kristy Milligan, or call us at (719) 520-9899.

Click here to download the flier

Click here for the REGISTRATION FORM.

Click here to download the 2011 Citizens Religious Freedom Toolkit.

Additional resource: US Department of Education guidelines

Additional resource: US Department of Education letter and primer

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Citizens Project Heralded as Steady and Strong Champion of Diversity

24th October, 2011

The Colorado Springs Diversity Forum has honored Citizens Project with a Steady and Strong Award for Diversity and Inclusion.  This prestigious award is given to businesses and organizations in the Pikes Peak region that promote diversity and inclusion in both internal operations and external civic engagement. Citizens Project was chosen as a recipient because of its commitment to diversity training, education, and highly inclusive organizational policies and benefits.

“Receiving a Steady and Strong Award for Diversity and Inclusion award is a huge honor for us,” said Kristy Milligan, executive director of Citizens Project. “It demonstrates our ongoing commitment to best practices, public education and outreach. Diversity is more than a box you check. It’s not something you do once and then move on. It’s an ongoing commitment to ensuring that everyone has a voice.”

Citizens Project has been a voice of diversity and inclusion in Colorado Springs for 20 years. Milligan says the organization is dedicated to continuing to champion these values in the community. “No one is more committed to diversity and inclusion than the Citizens Project staff and board members,” she said. “These are the unsung heroes, the silent and steadfast champions who work tirelessly to ensure that everyone has a seat at the table.”

About Citizens Project: Citizens Project is a local grassroots organization dedicated to defending and promoting equality, religious freedom, and respect for diversity – the principles on which our nation was founded. We educate the community through our newsletter Freedom Watch and nonpartisan voter guides, we monitor local government and public schools to ensure that rights and freedoms are upheld, and we mobilize residents to make their voices heard.

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Freedom Watch Voter Guide Available NOW!

20th October, 2011

Your vote is your voice.

Voting is more than a right; it’s a responsibility. When you make educated choices at the ballot box, you’re investing in your community and holding your leaders accountable.

That’s why, for the last 19 years, Citizens Project has produced nonpartisan publications and events for all local elections: to arm you with the information you need to make educated decisions that shape your community.

Thanks to the Pikes Peak Equality Coalition, collaborators, volunteers, donors, and readers like you, Citizens Project is proud to present our 2011 Freedom Watch Voter Guide for school board elections and city and state ballot measures. We hope you’ll use it to inform your decisions in the 2011 general election.

And if you’re still not sure, or if you haven’t received your ballot, check out our election page for all the information you need to make your voice heard.

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Make a difference! Get Out The Vote!

18th September, 2011

GOTV Phone banking, food, and fun!!

Our Postcard writing night was a great success thanks to all of our wonderful volunteers! Join Citizens Project at our next GOTV event!

Make sure your neighbors get involved in the upcoming general election, and make your voice heard!

Thursday, October 13 and 20, 2011, 5-9pm
Location TBD

Volunteers asked to stay for at least 2 hour shifts and are welcome to stay for the entire night. We need a minimum of ten volunteers to make it happen!

There will be games, music, refreshments, and fun throughout the night, also prizes for the person who brings the most friends.

RSVP to kristy@citizensproject.org

To learn more about the upcoming election, visit our election page here.

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The Ethical Trouble With Legislating Morality

18th August, 2011

by David Trillo, guest writer

“You can’t legislate morality!”  Few colloquial expressions depend more upon connotation than does this short, forceful proclamation of liberty.  And because it asserts liberty, few colloquialisms have weathered such a long, sustained, unrelenting campaign to discredit it, refute it and extinguish it from American parlance.

Most everyone knows what the expression means.  It means that we don’t, or shouldn’t, legislate moral beliefs based solely in tradition or religious beliefs.  Unfortunately, people and groups who wish to do exactly that have been attacking this axiom of freedom ever since.  Here I will explore one way that the phrase is attacked, and I will answer that while putting morality and ethics into clearer perspective.  I will explain why legislating morality is bad and wrong.

Wrong.  Was that a value judgment?

Perhaps the most common counter-claim is “every law legislates morality,” therefore “you must legislate morality.¹”  Those who argue that we cannot escape legislating morality typically list murder and theft as common examples, but they sometimes go farther, asserting that even speed limits² and no-smoking areas are legislation of morality.

One’s first reaction to these might be a sharp, involuntary gasp at what looks like an absurd word game meant to cloud the obvious issue, or to make bedroom laws sound as legitimate as homicide laws.  It would be a mistake, however, to miss an opportunity to examine morals, ethics, and the purposes of legislation.

Laws against murder, theft, speeding and running red lights exist to protect public safety, and to provide security in one’s person and property.  They are not enacted out of a belief that it’s a religious or moral sin to roll through a stop sign.

Though the words “morals” and “ethics” are sometimes used interchangeably, their connotations, i.e., their implied meanings are often different.

The familiar implied definition of “morals” was not lost on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia when his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas³ forebodingly lamented that overturning Texas’ sodomy laws – and all similar laws – “decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.⁴”

Scalia clearly understood the connotation behind “legislating morality,” legislating citizens’ private consenting behavior, usually related to sexuality.  He clearly was not saying that the Lawrence decision would put an end to all laws against murder, theft, rape, or speeding.

Thank you, Mr. Scalia for getting us back on topic.  Laws against murder and other public safety concerns are not examples of “legislating morality.”

“Ethics,” on the other hand, connote behavior or conduct as it affects, helps, or harms other people.  Murder, theft, fraud, false advertising, willful environmental pollution, and slander are clearly questions of ethics.  To a considerable extent, we do legislate ethics because of their relevance to safety and security.

These basic ethical principles are integral to human social nature, and are discovered naturally by most all people who grow up and develop normally.  We learn, through empathy and through the bitter experience of having it done to us, that it’s wrong to go around lying, cheating, stealing things or beating people up.  A natural sense of right and wrong is the inevitable product of an intelligent social species whose members must at once cooperate, co-exist, and compete.

It is therefore not surprising that these tenets, as well as treating others as we like to be treated, are teachings common to virtually all world religions and philosophies.

The Christian faith describes these ethics as “written on our hearts” (Romans 2:14-15), and notes that to love your neighbor (James 2:8) and not harming them (Romans 13:10) fulfill the spirit of the law.  The Affirmations of Humanism state that ethical principles can be discovered⁵ and tested by observing their consequences.  From culture to culture, these universal principles are exalted in words and ideals, if not always in deeds.

I describe these universals as “values that you can explain to someone else’s child, regardless of race or culture.”

It’s interesting that, when political activists talk of promoting moral values, they are rarely referring to these universal ethics.  What they strive to legislate instead are, more accurately, social customs — many of which seem, to me, arbitrary and sometimes even harmful, but which have been retained and perpetuated by cultural reinforcement alone, often through the teachings of religions.

You can explain to anyone’s child why murder and stealing are wrong.  It’s not so easy, on the other hand, to explain to a child raised in a primitive aboriginal (or advanced northern European) culture that nudity or non-marital sex is wrong.  “Why,” the child asks.  “Well, it just is!  It isn’t proper!” you plead.  You soon discover that you’re getting nowhere fast, and the explanation is actually easy:

Such moral beliefs are rooted in inherited cultural customs rather than universal human social nature.  It is impossible to communicate these ideas by appealing to universal ethics.  They are subjective in my secular view, having little justification apart from habit, convention or tradition.  As Antonin Scalia appears to note, they cannot survive rational basis review alone.

I do understand and appreciate that devout religious believers consider their doctrines to be stipulations of fact.  But to accept a faith’s teachings as fact, one must first adopt the faith itself – and as anyone experienced in Christian apologetics knows, convincing a person of a different or no religion (or a critical thinker) of the faith’s factual basis is practically impossible.  The believer must accept on faith that its teachings are fact.

It is perhaps because of this difficulty of convincing others, by reason alone, of deeply held traditional beliefs that political force is so often sought to enforce these conventions.  That feeling of powerlessness to persuade others, rationally, to accept one’s own deeply held moral beliefs, tempts some to resort to legal force — which is, after all, a standing threat of physical force.

It is because legislation amounts to a codified threat of physical force and punishment that makes the legislation of non-universal “opinion morals” ethically wrong.  It is little better than threatening your neighbors with violence because you don’t like how they live.  It may follow an orderly pattern of due process and appear to inherit the legitimacy lent by state sanctioned authority, but it is base aggression nonetheless – hardly in keeping with the Golden Rule, or with the Christian faith’s teaching to live in peace with those around us.

There’s a more serious reason why legislating these morals is harmful and wrong, however.  These moral opinions, particularly sexual opinions, have a curious way of being quickly blown out of proportion, and being so wildly exaggerated, that grave ethical priorities such as public safety and peace get pushed aside – both in the importance that we give to each, and the amount of public resources that we invest in them.  Police that could be working the gang unit are deployed to “vice” instead.  When being an unwed mother is considered worse than shoplifting, when otherwise rational and sane Americans begin seriously predicting the end of the world, catastrophic disasters, or the collapse of our nation because a few people might skinny-dip co-ed or marry their own gender, then, in my opinion, we have a “proportion and perspective” problem.

One of the most extreme examples of how a culture’s obsession with “sexual morality” can actually corrupt a culture’s ethical compass is given in the stories of Middle Eastern “honor killings” where family members kill their own daughters caught violating “sexual laws.”

We see something similar but milder coming from some members of American culture.  We heard, in the hurting days immediately after the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina, certain preachers almost finding satisfaction in the thought that these calamities were “God’s punishment” for our “depravity.”  One radical Catholic preacher’s frothing anti-sexual tirade speculates that the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was perhaps an act of God meant to punish the use of contraceptives⁷.

The murderous Norway extremist Anders Behring Breivik was reportedly fueled in part by hatred of women, feminism, and women’s sexual freedom⁶.

In the minds of these beholders, sexual morals become so important, or so singular an obsession, that human life itself is devalued in comparison.

Truly, these are extreme examples of broken ethical compasses.  But if American politics reach a point where enough Americans feel that it’s more important to legally punish private non-conformity or recreation than it is to protect human life, or promote the overall physical safety and mental health of our citizens, or lead the world in scientific progress, achievement, and educational excellence, then we have reached a point where our values have become scrambled, distorted and re-ordered enough to do much more harm to America’s ethical foundations than good.

When a politician who campaigns on science and math education, and funding for space or our public colleges and universities, can barely raise enough campaign money for one TV ad, while another candidate who promises to stick it to the gays and step up the war on sex can rake in tens of millions, that is when we as a nation have become lost in a minotaur maze of misplaced values.

At least I own a mirror and use it, for I know that my own foreboding warnings about our nation’s ethical compass sound a bit like the very people whom I criticize.  Yet we already see it happening in other parts of the world, where cultures forsake health, education and prosperity in favor of crushing women’s rights and brutal, overarching punishments for perceived sexual misconduct.

If it happens there, it can happen here, if we permit it.  We’re all human beings with the potential for misplaced sub-human aggressions.  I am doing my part to prevent our culture from resembling the very parts of the world that many Americans fear.

Certainly, people who believe that homosexuality or non-marital sex is wrong are free to continue in their faith.  We do have freedom of religion, after all, and there is real beauty in “saving yourself for marriage” if you consider abstinence sacred.  Live by your moral values, for they are indeed sacred to those who hold them.  Live them well, and Scripture teaches that your exemplary life will be an effective living witness (1 Peter 2:12).

But please, let’s maintain perspective and not let worry over select perceived sins or other people’s sexuality grow so disproportionate that our obsession with “curing” or “correcting” them pushes aside all the values that made America great: freedom of choice and religion, opportunity for prosperity, physical safety, self-determination, education, and science.

We’ll never get back to the moon if most of our resources are busy micromanaging one another and keeping our fellow Americans down.

References:

1. Selwyn Duke, “The reality about legislating morality,” RenewAmerica.com, 9/14/2004, http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/duke/040914 .
2. Chuck Colson, “Remembering Russell Kirk,” Townhall.com, 10/24/2003, http://townhall.com/columnists/chuckcolson/2003/10/24/remembering_russell_kirk .
3. Lawrence  v. Texas (2003), United States Supreme Court, http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html
4. Antonin Scalia dissent, Lawrence  v. Texas (2003), United States Supreme Court, http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZD.html
5. Affirmations of Humanism, http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=affirmations&section=main
6. Michelle Goldberg, “Norway Killer’s Hatred of Women,” The Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/24/norway-massacre-anders-breivik-s-deadly-attack-fueled-by-hatred-of-women.html
7. Fr. David Trosch, “Distillation or DOOM Will it begin on October 5, 1997?”, http://www.trosch.org/the/7oct05.htm

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