The law authorizing Colorado’s rogue civil rights commission expires soon. Today, Prof. William Wagner asked the Colorado legislature to let it do so.
Wagner urged the Colorado Senate to allow the Commission’s authorization to sunset. He did so because it performs the opposite of its intended function. Instead of protecting civil liberties, the Commission persecutes citizens who exercise their First Amendment rights. For example, in a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Commission attacked the livelihood of Christian bakery owner, Jack Philips.
Phillips holds the sincerely held religious conviction that marriage is a sacred covenant between one man and one woman. His conscience prevents him from contributing to a ceremony that violates his sincerely-held religious convictions. For this reason, when asked to participate in a same-sex wedding, he declined to make the cake. He did so, even though it meant losing two of his valued, long-time customers.
Offended by Phillip’s difficult, personal decision, rogue bureaucrats in the Commission used taxpayer dollars to pursue a debilitating lawsuit against him. In doing so, they attacked the civil liberties they were supposed to protect.
Prof. William Wagner stated, concerning these and other actions of the Commission,
Persecution of religious freedom and religious identity, as the Commission imposed upon Colorado citizens, must not stand in the United States. The First Amendment, federal statutes, and state statutes, promulgated in the name of religious tolerance and liberty, require sunset of the Commission’s Colorado oppressive and overreaching judgments.
We hope, with a sunset of the Commission, we will see a re-birth of liberty. No bureaucracy can remove this natural human right, no matter what oppressive tactics they employ. In the end, the Laws of nature and the Constitution must prevail.
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