30 results for tag: nondiscrimination

Twin threats: Trump’s “religious freedom” executive order, like FADA, means freedom to discriminate

By Ken Burrows Amid the competing personal and political headlines of the early Trump presidency, one story that’s been comparatively quiet has been Trump’s executive order on “religious freedom.” A draft copy of the order was leaked in January, downplayed at the time by press secretary Sean Spicer as essentially a work in progress and said to be just one among several draft directives on a range of topics being considered by the president’s transition team. But it has not gone away. Indeed, in early March The Advocate, an LBGT-interest magazine and website, described Trump’s order as “still very much alive and on its way,” ...

Scalia was not an originalist on church-state separation

By Ken Burrows A little over a month before he died on February 13, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a Catholic high school audience in Louisiana that “there is no place in our constitutional tradition” for the argument that the state should refrain from endorsing religion. It was a position he embraced persistently, on the bench and in public and private speeches. This is the same justice who was quoted in a 2013 New York magazine interview as insisting it is only rational to believe in the devil. The same justice who argued in a 2005 Supreme Court case that the Ten Commandments stand for the direction of human affairs by God and are ...

Minority Rights, the Fight Against Terrorism, and the Constitution

by Dr. Schuyler Foerster   Professor Edward Corwin, an eminent legal and political scholar, wrote that the U.S. Constitution is an “invitation to struggle”—an invitation to struggle among competing ideas, among competing centers of power, and among competing responsibilities in the exercise of governmental authority. In the domain of national security, the “invitation to struggle” built into the Constitution has been tested many times.  In combatting terrorism, these Constitutional issues have taken on different and much more complex forms.  They also require more careful attention on our part if we are to strike the proper ...

Citizens Proejct Response to Colorado Springs Anti-Refugee Resolution

On March 7, 2016 Colorado Springs Council Member Pico presented a resolution "declaring opposition the the relocation of refugees from the United States Refugee Resettlement Program to the City of Colorado Springs." Citizens Project was quick to respond by contacting every Council Member to express deep concern. The resolution is not currently on the City Council Agenda, which is a small success. We look forward to being an important part of a needed community conversation about how to best welcome and resettle refugees in our community. The following letter to the editor was published in The Gazette on March 11, 2016. Since our inception, ...

Perils of RFRA: How “extreme” religious liberty violates the no-harm rule

Perils of RFRA: How “extreme” religious liberty violates the no-harm rule Why Colorado’s HB 16-1180 is fraught with damaging consequences **NOTE: On March 16, 2016 House Bill 1180 was postponed indefinitely. By Ken Burrows In the historical archives of church-state issues in America, no line is quoted more often than that in Thomas Jefferson’s reply to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 in which he endorsed “building a wall of separation between church and state.” However, a less quoted line in that same letter is becoming more and more relevant to church-state controversies today. It is Jefferson’s observation, leading into his ...

Understanding Muslim Communities at Home & Abroad — a Town Hall Conversation

REGISTER HERE Join the Colorado Springs World Affairs Council and Citizens Project for this event! Tickets for this event are $20 and include appetizers.

Religious exemptions: An experiment on our liberties — Part 2

by Ken Burrows In Part 1 on the subject of religious exemptions last month, we discussed why “religious freedom” and “freedom of conscience” are not absolutes to which all other principles in our pluralistic society must defer every time these freedoms are invoked to justify exemptions. We discussed why we need a separation between religion/conscience claims that affect only the individual claimant and those that go on to impermissibly harm others, concluding that freedom to practice your religion does not confer freedom to impose it on others, especially in light of our church-state separation principles. We pointed out that ...

Religious Liberty from a Religious Perspective

by Rev. Dr. Benjamin J. Broadbent Lead Minister of The First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, of Colorado Springs This speech was given at the 2015 Creating Community Breakfast. It is a joy and honor to be here with all of you at Citizen’s Project’s 11th Annual Creating Community Breakfast. We’re here because we value inclusion, equality, justice, and respect for the dignity of all. In fact, we believe that these values can and should direct our future as a city, as a state, and as a nation. We’re here because we believe deeply in religious liberty. That is, we believe in the freedom to practice religion accord...

#IHeartCOS

If you love Colorado Springs (and we know you do) join Citizens Project and the Pikes Peak Equality Coalition to spread the love today in our city: Follow the action on Twitter and use #IHeartCOS to share your own reasons for loving this city Change your own profile picture to the image at the right Take a selfie and share with your Facebook friends and Twitter followers why you ♥ Colorado Springs Finally check out this Buzzfeed article to see why others love Colorado Springs and maybe get some inspiration yourself! We believe in the transformative power of language. By changing the conversation about our community, we can change our ...