Citizens Project

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, WES Room, Worner Center

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 2012 Citizens Religious Freedom Toolkit.

Additional resource: US Department of Education guidelines

Additional resource: US Department of Education letter and primer

Additional resource: Bullying prevention and tolerance

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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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When Words Mean the Opposite: The Story of My Awakening

15th July, 2011

When Words Mean the Opposite: The Story of My Awakening

By David Trillo

If a psychic or a Tarot reader had told me in 1985 that, within the next seven years, I would become a gay rights activist, I would have laughed in his face – if he had caught me in a good mood.

I was more than just anti-gay.  I was vehemently anti-abortion.  The only reason why I didn’t join Operation Rescue or a similar group was youthful ignorance – I didn’t know where to contact them.

I was still an evangelical Christian when I joined as one of Citizens Project’s earliest supporters in 1992.  The idea of gay marriage was still hard for me to take, but as I listened to Christian radio and conservative talk beginning around 1990, I began noticing a pattern that disturbed me much more deeply than guys marrying guys.

I began noticing a very systematic, repetitive attack on the concept of church/state separation, and an orchestrated re-introduction of the antiquated idea of “legislating morality.”  Not only did that run counter to my core beliefs in Christian free will, but I knew that if I had doctrinal differences with the “Christian authorities” – and I did — it took no rocket science to see that these aspiring theocrats would impose their moral doctrines by legislation, with no regard for my Christian theological disagreement.

I became, on that fateful 1992 day, the most unlikely gay rights activist.  As distasteful as I found my admittedly distorted visions of the “gay lifestyle” to be at that time, I knew, deep down, that to protect my rights as a dissenter, I must likewise protect theirs.

It didn’t take long to see that, in the world of far right politics, words aren’t always what they seem.

To average people, “freedom” means that you can live your life much as you choose, as long as you aren’t hurting others.  The Constitution, we’d think, sets up a government with internal restraints, and protects important individual rights and freedoms so that no government can take them away.

But in the strange world of Hard Right vernacular, these familiar, appealing words can take on virtually opposite meanings.  “Freedom” isn’t what most people would think it is; it means instead either an unlimited “freedom to make laws”¹ as former judge Robert Bork puts it, or freedom is a “biblical concept” that “comes with limits set from the very beginning by our Creator,”² as explained by Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Religious freedom is also turned on its head.  To the Hard Right, it merely means the freedom to worship as you choose – “we won’t force you to go to church” — but you would be required to live your life by laws “rooted in Biblical law,” as the dubiously named Constitution Party says it³.  To be “free” to worship in your own religion, while being forced to live according to a different, government-imposed religion¹¹, is a hollow freedom.

And “Constitutional rights?”  Not as most people understand them.  To former Republican leader Tom DeLay, the Supreme Court should never have been given any power to overturn unconstitutional laws⁴.  To Robert Bork, very few rights would be off limits to being trampled by “representative assemblies¹.”  And to Religious Right attorney Thomas Jipping, “direct forms of democracy”⁵ such as ballot initiatives would probably be immune to Constitutional challenges, since he objects to the courts’ alleged “power to thwart the will of the people”⁵.

To theocratic “Constitutionalists,” the Constitution is considered subordinate to “God’s law”¹¹, despite its own statement to the contrary.  “Despotic government” is not tyranny in itself – it refers to any government that enacts laws contrary to “God’s law.” An expansion of personal liberty could be deemed “tyrannical” if “God” disapproves.   According to advocates such as noted creationist Henry Morris, this higher law that trumps the Constitution is “nothing more nor less than applied Biblical law.”¹²

Will voting for today’s Religious Right candidate “keep government out of our private lives,” as conservative and Republican advocates claim?  Don’t bet on it.

To Religious Right icon Sam Brownback, there exists no right to “sexual privacy”⁶.  To Tom DeLay⁴, and Vision America’s Rick Scarborough⁷, Americans have no protected right to privacy at all. Possible presidential contender Rick Santorum disparages the “right to privacy lifestyle”⁸, particularly as it pertains to sexual choice.

Conservative columnist Jason Adkins, to his credit, pointed out the importance of the courts’ role in enforcing the Constitution⁹.  Unfortunately, he was soon countered by comments that argued that the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to states!

Indeed, partially or even completely repealing the power of the courts to enforce Constitutional protections is an increasingly popular idea among the far right^{10, 13}.  Imagine a future where your state or local government could randomly search your house for contraband books – and the Bill of Rights would afford no recourse.

America is just two or three “conservative” Supreme Court appointments away from possibly realizing such a frightening world.  That is what some extremists call “returning to Constitutional government.”

It is anything but.

Wow, what an awakening this was!  But the opening of my eyes paved the way for major changes in my soul.  I now support same-sex marriage with all of my heart.

I am still a moderate, libertarian Republican.  It worries me to see Democrats so eagerly support a wholesale expansion of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause scope to justify the upcoming federal health insurance mandate.  They would do well to contemplate such expanded federal power in the hands of the Religious Right.

But if you’re a Republican, Libertarian, new to the Tea Party, or are otherwise concerned about excessive government, don’t fall into the “any conservative is always better than any Democrat” thought habit.  Pay very close attention to candidates, and see whether each candidate uses the words “freedom” and “Constitutional liberty” in their normal, commonsense meanings, or whether there might be a bizarre reverse definition concealed inside a Trojan Horse.

If you’re looking for true Constitutional freedom, you might be disappointed, even stunned, that some of the people who most loudly promise “freedom” have in mind something very opposite — the unfettered legislative access to your most personal life.

I know I was stunned.  It knocked my eyes wide open.

———————————————————-

References:

1.  Robert Bork, “Tradition and Morality in Constitutional Law” p. 9

2.  Albert Mohler, “The Culture of Freedom and the Future of Marriage,” AlbertMohler.com, 9/14/2005, http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/09/14/the-culture-of-freedom-and-the-future-of-marriage-2/

3.  Constitution Party National Platform, as of 7/11/2011, http://www.constitutionparty.org/party_platform.php

4.  Tom Delay, Washington Times interview 4/13/2005, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/apr/13/20050413-111439-5048r

5.  Thomas Jipping, “Imperial Judiciary,” Christian American, Christian Coalition, January 1997.

6.  Sam Brownback, Obscenity Prosecution and the Constitution, Senate Hearing 109-1023, 3/16/2005, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-109shrg44825/html/CHRG-109shrg44825.htm

7.  Rick Scarborough, “It’s All About the Judges,” Scarborough Report, Vision America, 9/28/2007, http://www.visionamerica.us/article/its-all-about-the-judges/

8.  Rick Santorum, Associated Press interview, 4/23/2003, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-23-santorum-excerpt_x.htm

9.  Jason Adkins, “Judicial Abdication, Not Activism, is the Real Problem in the Courts,” Townhall.com, 2/24/2011, http://townhall.com/columnists/jasonadkins/2011/02/24/judicial_abdication,_not_activism,_is_the_real_problem_in_the_courts/

10.  2004/2008 Candidate Questionnaire, Conservative Caucus, http://www.conservativeusa.org/candqest2008.htm

11.  Main page, Rare Jewel Magazine Website, as of 7/12/2011, http://rarejewelmag.com/about/index.shtml

12.  Henry Morris, “The Higher Law,” Institute for Creation Research, http://www.icr.org/article/20528/228

13.  Alex Newman, “Stopping Abortion Without the Supreme Court”, The New American, 7/8/2011, http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/congress/8136-stopping-abortion-without-the-supreme-court

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The Colorado Springs Human Relations Commission —- 2011 — A New Page

15th June, 2011

by Tom Strand, Interim HRC Chair

The Human Relations Commission in Colorado Springs is back after an absence of almost 17 years.   In June of 2010 the Colorado Springs City Council passed Ordinance 10-48.  In early 2011, over 35 volunteer candidates were interviewed and on March 8th nine commissioners were selected for 2-4 year service terms along with three alternate Commissioners.  This Commission met for the first time in City Hall on April 28th. After a brief orientation, the 12 person Commission selected an Interim Chair, Tom Strand, Interim Vice Chair, Ernest House and Interim Secretary, Teressa Hill. The interim officers are designated to serve until September 2011 when a slate of permanent officers are elected. Since the initial April 28th meeting the Colorado Springs HRC has met on the third Wednesday of each month, as well as on May 21st for a general team building and organizational half -day session.

The mission statement and objectives of the HRC are still under development but are generally set out in the ordinance. The draft mission statement is:  ”To promote understanding and respect for all Colorado Springs residents by facilitating constructive communications through referrals, conflict resolution and proactive outreach.” The purpose of the HRC is to help guard against mal-treatment and discrimination in all parts of life for our residents, including housing, transportation, employment and day-to-day activities.

The HRC has created two sub-committees, Education and Structure, in order to accomplish the background work to properly launch the HRC later this fall. These committees have met 2 to 3 times to establish educational and training requirements (such as mediation skills) and to ensure the Commission is fully prepared to assist residents with a myriad of potential issues/problems. The Structure Subcommittee has drafted by-laws and other operating documents which are currently being reviewed and are pending Commission adoption.

The committees are working with members of City Council and other city offices, such as Legal and HR, to start up a program, a website, and public contact information for the HRC.

Stand by for the official announcement of the activation of your new HRC later this year!

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