When will Colorado leave Christians alone?
Hudson Crozier
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Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) signed his universal preschool program into law last year, hoping that it would “break down barriers” for struggling families. Expanding tax-funded education was a “monumental achievement” for his progressive base and “makes a powerful statement about equity,” he bragged over the course of several months.
Well, if educational opportunity is so vital, why does Darren Patterson Christian Academy have to sue in federal court to try to get into the program?
NO SPECIAL TAX BREAKS FOR WEALTHY BLUE STATE REPUBLICANS
Because Polis’s administration considers its anti-discrimination (read: anti-Christian) policies more important. Thus, it has rejected the preschool’s application because its values do not align with LGBT ideology, the unofficial state religion of Colorado.
Unless the preschool compromises girls’ safety, privacy, and dignity by allowing boys into their restrooms and housing, requires teachers to use incorrect pronouns for gender-confused children, and more, it cannot participate. The so-called “religious exemption” that bureaucrats offered was so narrow that it would hardly mean anything.
“Even though the school welcomes all families and children, these provisions would force it to hire employees who do not share its faith and to alter internal rules and policies that are based on the school’s religious beliefs about sexuality and gender,” the suit explains.
Colorado has already lost two Supreme Court cases in recent years for trying to force Christian business owners to make artistic products praising homosexuality. Cake maker Jack Phillips won a favorable ruling in 2018, while web designer Lorie Smith won last month.
Like the plaintiffs in those cases, Darren Patterson Christian Academy does not categorically deny service to LGBT people. It enrolls non-Christian students. It just won’t do anything that directly endorses LGBT lifestyles. But officials do not respect this school’s freedom, nor the freedom of parents to find a school that will not push transgenderism on children who are barely older than toddlers.
The Supreme Court even struck down a program in Maine that excluded public funding for religious schools last year. But no matter how many times the First Amendment kills anti-Christian efforts, the persecution of private Christian organizations in Colorado continues. Polis’s administration alone is behind this latest exclusionary policy, and the lawsuit targets the bureaucrats who enforce it by name. They are making a choice to continue this bigoted crusade, and none of their higher-ups are stopping them.
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Psychologist Jordan Peterson once said, “If you can’t understand why someone is doing something, look at the consequences of their actions, whatever they might be, and then infer the motivations from their consequences.” What, then, does the LGBT mob hope to achieve by inviting endless lawsuits? The hardship these situations inflict on its enemies, even if it’s temporary, seems to be the point.
Hudson Crozier is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.