On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled against Masterpiece Cakeshop baker Jack Phillips, arguing he violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to bake a cake for a gender transition celebration.
Critics of the ruling point to Phillips’ earlier “win” at the Supreme Court, which narrowly ruled in his favor, as the reason the baker continues to be targeted by activists. In 2017, former Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion that some have argued essentially said Phillips could have lost his Supreme Court case if it hadn’t been for Colorado officials openly disparaging Phillips and his Christian views.
That narrow decision has allowed Phillips to continue to be persecuted, critics say. At the Washington Examiner, Quin Hillyer argued that the Supreme Court’s “search for the narrowest possible result merely invited further, seemingly endless rounds of new litigation.”
The latest lawsuit against Phillips comes from an activist attorney, Autumn Scardina, in Colorado who called Masterpiece Cakeshop on the same day the Supreme Court announced it would take his prior case – in which he was accused of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. The attorney requested Phillips create a custom cake that was pink on the inside and blue on the outside to celebrate a gender transition. According to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represents Phillips, the attorney also called back to request a cake depicting Satan smoking marijuana in order to “correct the errors of [Phillips’] thinking.” Phillips declined to make either cake because of the messages they depicted. The activist has now sued.
“Naturally, Colorado’s courts ignored the patently offensive request for a Satan cake and instead again held Phillips responsible for illegal discrimination based on gender, his religious objections notwithstanding,” Hillyer wrote. “Today’s affirmation by the appeals court of the lower court’s ruling takes ample advantage of the loophole left open by the Supreme Court while cherry-picking from other Supreme Court religious liberty decisions to reach its desired, anti-Phillips conclusion.”
On Twitter, prominent conservative PoliMath also blamed the Supreme Court for the ongoing legal struggles of Masterpiece Cakeshop.
“The result of John Roberts pushing for the narrowest possible ruling in the earlier Masterpiece case is that they continued persecuting Jack Phillips for years,” PoliMath tweeted. “They will continue to do this to him until he dies.”
The result of John Roberts pushing for the narrowest possible ruling in the earlier Masterpiece case is that they continued persecuting Jack Phillips for years
The appeals court on Thursday argued that Phillips only refused to bake the cake after learning the client was transgender and wanted to use the cake to celebrate his birthday and gender transition.
“Thus, it was Scardina’s transgender status, and her desire to use the cake in celebration of that status, that caused Masterpiece and Phillips to refuse to provide the cake,” the court wrote, arguing the cake “expressed no message.”
But ADL argues that “Phillips works with all people and always decides whether to take a project based on what message a cake will express, not who is requesting it.”
“Over a decade ago, Colorado officials began targeting Jack, misusing state law to force him to say things he does not believe. Then an activist attorney continued that crusade,” the ADF said in a statement. “This cruelty must stop. One need not agree with Jack’s views to agree that all Americans should be free to say what they believe, even if the government disagrees with those beliefs.”
Democratic candidate Adam Frisch conceded to Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado Friday after a razor-thin House race that saw Boebert leading with just a few hundred votes.
As of Friday, Boebert led Frisch by 551 votes, which is a margin of 0.17% of the total votes cast, with 99% of precincts reporting. Frisch, in a Zoom call, said that “The voters have spoken…The likelihood of this recount changing more than a handful of votes is very, very small.”
Two remaining counties in the District have about 200 outstanding ballots, Ben Stout, Boebert’s communications director, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, who also confirmed that a recount is due to occur under state law. He noted that Boebert’s margin would still allow her to win, even if all ballots weren’t in her favor.
HAPPENING NOW: Adam Frisch concedes #CO03 race to Lauren Boebert. "The voters have spoken," Frisch says. "The likelihood of this recount changing more than a handful of votes is very, very small." #copoliticspic.twitter.com/OPUAr8mLMr
Boebert’s reelection campaign to a second House term had been unexpectedly competitive and illustrates a decline in support for her within the district, which has a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of R+7. In 2020, she defeated Rep. Scott Tipton in the district’s GOP primary by 9.2%, a major upset, which was the first time in 48 years an incumbent Colorado congressman had been defeated in a primary election.
Boebert was later elected by a 5.85% margin and joined the House Freedom Caucus upon election. She has been a strong ally of former President Donald Trump in the House, co-chairs the Second Amendment Caucus and has attracted attention for her Second Amendment advocacy, having first gained popularity after operating a restaurant, named “Shooter’s Grill,” where patrons were encouraged to carry firearms in public. (RELATED: Rep. Boebert Pushes To Ban Abortion Clinics On Federal Lands)
Additionally, Boebert faced controversy for interrupting President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in March 2022, shouting that “You put them in. Thirteen of them!” in relation to thirteen U.S. servicemembers killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the heckle occurring when Biden was discussing his son Beau’s death.
Frisch, an agricultural goods manufacturer, had made Boebert’s conduct as a Member a primary focus of the campaign, calling her “lying, self-serving, and morally compromised,” as well as claiming that she did not pay attention to local issues, and instead was obsessed with her popularity among conservatives nationally.
The race stood out in 2022’s midterm elections, where an incumbent and high-profile Republican representative was significantly challenged for their seat by a Democrat despite the GOP being forecast to win a majority. Though the Democrats flipped some House seats previously held by Republicans, their incumbents either lost primary challenges by Trump-backed candidates, such as Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler of Washington.
Wednesday was the deadline for voters in the district to resolve problems with mail-in ballots or their provisional ballot eligibility, as well as for precincts to receive overseas and military ballots, per NBC 9 News. County clerks must complete all counting by Friday, while the Secretary of State of Colorado must verify all results by Dec. 5 or order a recount. Under Colorado state elections law, a mandatory recount is conducted if the margin of victory is 0.5% or smaller.
Regardless of the race’s outcome, control of the House of Representatives in the next Congress has already been decided, with Republicans winning the required 218 seats for a majority.
Students sitting at their desks in a classroom raise their hands. | Getty Images
States are taking different approaches to how their schools teach sensitive subjects in history classes, with Colorado and Virginia taking the spotlight last week.
Colorado’s State Board of Education voted last Thursday in a 4-3 party-line vote to update the state’s social studies curriculum for all grade levels, restoring references to the LGBT community and marginalized racial minorities that had been cut earlier this year after some parents expressed concerns over a lack of diversity.
CPR News reported that the state board of education would require schools’ social studies curriculum to reference minority groups throughout all grade levels in compliance with Colorado law. Board member Lisa Escárcega said that she included references to certain races and LGBT individuals at the top of the recommendations due to the importance of such groups.
The changes come as the state conducts its annual revision of academic standards, something Colorado does every six years. The Colorado State Board of Education did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
The board made recommendations for the curriculum standards last November that caused controversy.
The recommendations updated social studies standards to include references to minority groups highlighted in a law passed by the legislature in 2019 calling for the inclusion of more diverse views in children’s history lessons. The law requires schools to include perspectives of LGBT people, African Americans, Latinos, American Indians and Asian Americans.
After concerns were raised about “age-appropriateness,” the committee eliminated references to LGBT people for students below fourth grade in April.
Republican Board member Steve Durham objected to exposing preschoolers to LGBT topics, arguing that the “impact and discussion of sexual issues is the same for kindergartens as it is for high school students.”
Democratic board members and Escárcega argued that LGBT issues are not sexual topics, claiming the topic may come up during discussions about families, even in lower grades, according to CPR.
In a Monday statement to The Christian Post, a spokesperson for the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, which supported references to LGBT people, said the standards were based “on research and best practice.”
“The cuts that were made to eliminate certain references to the LGBTQ community and the realities of racism in our history perpetuate xenophobia, homophobia and false understandings of our collective histories,” the spokesperson wrote.
Before the vote, the board allowed for public comments. Except for two speakers, all who spoke called for restoring references to LGBT individuals. One parent who opposed restoring references to the LGBT community, Mary Goodley, stated that parents reserve the right to teach their children about complex social issues.
“Teaching children about particular sexual or gender notions is a clear violation of parental rights and not only serves to further discredit, but also decreases trust in the public education model,” she said, as quoted by CPR.
The standards will go into effect next year.
Last month, the Colorado school board voted 4 to 3 to reject American Birthright social studies standards, a model promoted by the conservative National Association of Scholars. Those standards aim to teach children where their freedoms come from and “why their country deserves to be loved.”
Thursday’s vote in Colorado came the day before the Virginia Department of Education under Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed new revisions that would alter former Gov. Ralph Northam’s proposed history and social science guidelines in the state’s schools.
“The standards will recognize the world impact of America’s quest for a ‘more perfect Union’ and the optimism, ideals and imagery captured by Ronald Reagan’s ‘shining city upon a hill’ speech,” the proposal reads. “Students will know our nation’s exceptional strengths, including individual innovation, moral character, ingenuity and adventure, while learning from terrible periods and actions in direct conflict with these ideals.”
The 53-page proposal includes teaching kindergarteners about patriotism and how certain symbols are used to honor the country. Fourth-grade students would learn about the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, and 11th-grade students would study Christopher Columbus and the enslavement of African-Americans.
If the Virginia Board of Education adopts the draft proposal, the new standards will go into effect for seven years, according to a factsheet sent to Virginia legislators on Friday. The new standards would be taught during the 2024-2025 school year, and professional development will start in the summer of 2023. The administration claims these changes are necessary to provide clarity for educators and expand parental involvement.
“The August 2022 draft standards were unnecessarily difficult for educators to understand and implement; they were also inaccessible for parents and families,” the factsheet reads. “The November 2022 revised standards are easily understood and implemented through a logical progression with a recommended grade level sequence.”
The proposed history curriculum under Northam would have included lessons on LGBT issues and social justice, in addition to halting requirements to teach lessons on Christopher Columbus and Benjamin Franklin. The Northam standards also would not have included lessons on why James Madison is called the “Father of the Constitution” and George Washington is called the “Father of our Country.” Under the new draft, fourth-grade students would once again learn why Madison and Washington have these titles.
Critics, such as the Virginia Education Association, a union representing more than 40,000 education workers, contend the proposed standards will impede academic instruction. VEA President James J. Fedderman said in a Saturday statement to The Washington Post that he believes the new standards contain “political bias” and refer to enslaved people with “outdated language.”
Former Trump administration official and founder of the education advocacy group Fight For Schools, Ian Prior, supports the changes. Prior told The Post that if applied “correctly,” the changes could unlock key critical thinking skills that students can use to make their own analysis and decision as they mature into young leaders.”
The Virginia Education Association did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
Education appeared to be a relevant issue last November when Youngkin defeated Democratic challenger Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Amid national attention surrounding parental involvement in education, McAuliffe argued in a debate against parents being able to tell schools what to teach. Youngkin responded to these concerns by promoting himself as an advocate for parental involvement in education.
In September, the state’s Department of Education reversed another one of Northam’s directives involving trans-identifying students. The new directive prohibits students from identifying as the opposite gender without documentation and requires schools to keep parents informed about their child’s “psychological development.”
The office of Colorado’s Democrat secretary of state admitted to “mistakenly” sending “get out the vote” postcards to roughly 30,000 noncitizens ahead of the state’s upcoming elections, according to a new report.
As reported by the Associated Press (AP), Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office blamed “the error on a database glitch related to the state’s list of residents with driver’s licenses” and claimed that “none of the noncitizens” would be permitted “to register to vote if they [tried].”
“The error happened after department employees compared a list of names of 102,000 people provided by the Electronic Registration Information Center [(ERIC)] … to a database of Colorado residents issued driver’s licenses,” the AP report reads. “That Department of Revenue driver’s license list includes residents issued special licenses to people who are not U.S. citizens. But it didn’t include formatting information that normally would have allowed the Department of State to eliminate those names before the mailers went out.”
Under state law, Colorado may issue driver’s licenses to non-U.S. citizens and is able to automatically register eligible citizens to vote when they acquire their license from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
As reported by Federalist Staff Writer Victoria Marshall, a group known as ERIC was kickstarted in 2012 “by far-left activist David Becker and the left-leaning Pew Charitable Trusts” and “shares voter roll data — including records of unregistered voters — it receives from the states with [the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR)].” CEIR was one of two leftist groups used to funnel Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s $419 million into U.S. states that resulted in the “private takeover of government election offices” during the 2020 election.
“CEIR then develops targeted mailing lists and sends them back to the states to use for voter registration outreach,” Marshall writes. “As part of their agreement with ERIC, states are not allowed to disclose any data they send to nor receive from ERIC, however, ERIC is not under the same constraints and is able to work with CEIR.”
In response to the proclaimed “error,” Griswold’s office told the AP that it is purportedly in the process of sending notices to the 30,000 noncitizens that received the postcards and that it’s developing practices “to prevent or reject anyone not eligible to vote from registering, including comparing Social Security Numbers required for each application, on a daily basis.”
In Colorado, all registered voters are automatically sent a ballot in the mail, regardless of whether they intend to vote in-person on Election Day. This election cycle, the state plans on sending out ballots to voters as early as Oct. 17.
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
(Photo credit JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images)
A Colorado school board proposed a “gender expansive” toolkit that directs educators on how to address transgender and non-binary students, including keeping gender transitions a secret from parents, according to the Post Independent.
“We previously affirmed students’ rights without yet specifying supporting practices,” Roaring Fork School District Chief Of Student And Family Services Anna Cole wrote in a memo to the board. “We have since learned the importance of providing clear guidance and programmatic support and have heard requests from students and staff for more explicit procedures. The toolkit is our response to these requests.”
The toolkit suggests a “gender tree” to explain gender identity and calls the soil, “societal influence,” which is the way “social, cultural and institutional influence” shape “gendered individuals.” Included is “fluidity and history” as the “rings of the tree” to represent a person’s “deeply-felt sense of gender” that can expand beyond man and woman to “genderqueer and agender,” the toolkit showed.
Under the “toolkit,” educators are advised to allow students to use whichever restroom and locker room corresponds with their gender identity. On overnight trips, students should receive accommodations “on a case-by-case basis with the goals of maximizing the student’s social integration.”
“It’s one thing to identify as a gender, but quite another to compel others to use special pronouns, and to open bathrooms and locker rooms to transgender students or allow transgender students onto sports teams of the opposite sex,” a board meeting attendee said to the Post Independent. “The rights of those not identifying as transgendered are being trampled.”
A Civil Union license is signed at a midnight ceremony in the Denver Office of the Clerk and Recorder, at the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building on May 1, 2013 in Denver, Co. Colorado is the eighth state to have civil unions or similar laws implemented, permitting unmarried couples, both gay and heterosexual, the ability to form civil unions and get similar rights to those of married couples. (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)
In Florida, a school board implemented a sexual education curriculum that links to Planned Parenthood documents and teaches 12-year-olds “all the ways pregnancy can occur.” An Ohio school is allowing educators to wear LGBTQ badges, despite parental pushback, in an effort to show students they are allies to the community.
The Roaring Fork School Board and Roaring Fork School District did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The National Rifle Association is hosting its leadership summit in Houston on Friday. Following a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school Tuesday, many corporate media outlets are suggesting politicians should cancel their planned speeches there.
“Houston Mayor Says He Can’t Cancel NRA Convention After School Massacre,” wrote Bloomberg. “Trump will keep ‘longtime commitment’ to Texas NRA event despite school shooting,” wrote the New York Post.
Why would an organization of law-abiding defenders of the U.S. Constitution cancel an event on account of a horrific school shooting committed by an individual with no regard for constitutional principles, readers might ask. Nevertheless, the pressure from the media and others opposed to gun rights will be intense.
It is reminiscent of a previous attempt by the media and other partisans to blame law-abiding gun owners and their defenders for gun violence. On April 20, 1999, two high school seniors murdered 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The NRA was slated to hold its large convention in Denver just days later.
Everyone in the political and media classes warned the NRA to cancel their convention. Many immediately pushed for gun control as the only valid response to the murders.
President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton immediately called for limits on gun rights, as did many other Democrat politicians. The Democrat mayor of Denver, Wellington Webb, repeatedly told the NRA attendees that they weren’t welcome anymore.
Weak-kneed politicians canceled their planned appearances. More than five dozen Colorado business leaders signed a full-page ad published in local newspapers asking the convention organizers to cancel. Thousands of anti-gun rights activists descended on the convention.
Nevertheless, a few brave gun rights proponents stood strong. Charlton Heston — the actor and civil rights activist who was by then president of the NRA — opened up the convention in Denver on May 1, saying it was “absurd” and “offensive” to act as if supporters of Second Amendment rights couldn’t gather.
But what happened next was breathtaking. The top-ranking Republican in the state at that time was Gov. Bill Owens. He declined an invitation to speak. Secretary of State Vikki Buckley, a black Republican in her second term, welcomed the attendees to Colorado with a breathtaking speech on gun rights. “I greet you as Secretary of State of Colorado and I welcome you to Colorado, a state where some of us believe strongly in the entire Constitution of these United States, including the Second Amendment.”
Buckley was the first black secretary of state in Colorado and the first black Republican woman elected statewide in the Centennial State. The mother of three sons, she had once been on welfare to support them, eventually becoming a clerk typist in the secretary of state’s office in the early 1980s.
Her campaign pitch was to tell people that if she didn’t win the race, she’d have to train whoever did win. She defeated four other candidates for the Republican nomination in 1994 on the strength of a floor speech, even though hardly anyone at the convention had heard of her previously.
Buckley mentored young women and spoke to international women’s organizations about building stronger communities. She helped homeless children and worked to end the scourge of gang violence.
One of the children killed at Columbine was Isaiah Shoels, an 18-year-old black senior. His murderers had used racial slurs before killing him. Buckley had spent time with his parents and quoted Isaiah’s father about the scourge underlying violence.
“Guns are not the issue. Hate is what pulls the trigger of violence,” she said. She talked about “new age hate crimes,” such as raising children “without a value system which places a premium on human life,” or sending children to school “without a value system which teaches the difference between right and wrong.” She listed the ways in which children were not prepared for socioeconomic success, saying, “raise as much heck about that as you did about the NRA, and you will have saved more lives in five years than are taken with guns in a century.”
Buckley then shared the painful story of how she was the victim of gun violence. “I know firsthand the pain and fear–but that experience has not made me an opponent of the NRA or the Second Amendment,” she said. She called for resources to be spent against violence and hate, then said, “But we must stand ever strong against those who would ignore sections of the U.S. Constitution which they do not like. We are a strong democracy because the guiding principles of our Constitution and all of its amendments including the Second must be adhered to in its entirety, not selectively. Thank you and God bless America.”
The thousands of attendees roared to their feet and gave her a standing ovation. You can watch the speech here.
It was not to be. Buckley died unexpectedly of a heart attack just two months later. Her courage and leadership is remembered.
Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College. A Fox News contributor, she is a regular member of the Fox News All-Stars panel on “Special Report with Bret Baier.” Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, CNN, National Review, GetReligion, Ricochet, Christianity Today, Federal Times, Radio & Records, and many other publications. Mollie was a 2004 recipient of a Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship at The Fund for American Studies and a 2014 Lincoln Fellow of the Claremont Institute. She is the co-author of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. She is the author of “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.” Reach her at mzhemingway@thefederalist.com
Merit Academy’s vision: students prepared for success in a free society, promoting civic responsibility, and contributing their talents in a flourishing republic.
It seems a lifetime ago when The Federalist introduced you last fall to Merit Academy in Woodland Park, Colorado. It’s a no-politics public school designed and overseen by local parents, opened in just one year of intense planning and work. These past seven months have seen this public contract school grow and flourish, despite many challenges.
“When you think back to where we were a year ago, it is surreal,” says Gwynne Pekron, Merit’s director of development and chief action officer, beaming. “This was a dream for many, but a vision to us.”
Merit Academy is a classical, Core Knowledge school that opened on August 23, 2021, to 184 full-time students and more than 80 part-time homeschool students. The parents and community members who built Merit sought an education that would challenge children and build lasting friendships, without the controversial politics often found in public schools.
“Merit Academy is a shining example of our virtues of valor, goodness, and perseverance,” reflected local parent Heather Scholz. “It meets the demand of parents who have given up on the direction of modern schools.”
When we last checked in with Merit Academy, they were working hard in the classroom basement of Faith Lutheran Church, which generously opened its doors to Merit when the school’s board struggled to find a space big enough to accommodate parent demand. Where are they now? After calling both Faith Lutheran and Mountain View Methodist churches home, Merit Academy is now in its “start-up Bear Den” at a re-purposed hardware store in a local strip mall. Outside recess space was kindly offered by neighboring Our Lady of the Woods Catholic Church. Classroom walls are portable, lined with sound blankets to alleviate noise. From these walls hang children’s artwork and school projects, ranging from idioms to drawings of George Washington to designs of engineered future cities.
“For the first time, my son doesn’t ask for a ‘sick day,’” says Tarin McNeese, a sixth-grade parent. “This is not to say it’s easy—he works at it—but when challenged, his teachers guide him. I personally appreciate the school’s transparency with what is taught.”
The Merit Bears study science, English, history, reading, mathematics, Latin, language lab, and writing. In the halls, one hears lively songs of the upcoming spring performance, recitations of numbers study, and discussions of what it means to be valorous, one of the five Merit virtues. The classes are driven by Merit’s vision: students prepared for success in a free society, promoting civic responsibility, and contributing their talents in a flourishing republic by pursuing beauty, truth, and good.
The desire for choice is stronger than ever, not only in this beautiful mountain community but across the nation as charter school enrollments climb. In November 2021, this school district had its first contested school board election in more than a decade, and Merit’s existence, school choice, and critical race theory were all on the ballot. All four school-choice candidates swept the election, but their change agenda faces fierce resistance from the defeated minority. The new board majority is addressing the taxpayers’ concerns about district facilities operating at approximately 50 percent capacity. They are committed to stopping the 20-year trend of severely declining enrollment and family exodus.
The local school district was losing families who decided to live elsewhere or place their children in public and private schools outside Teller County, a picturesque rural location encompassing Pike’s Peak and adjacent to Colorado Springs. To bring families back, the new school board members support a parent’s right to know what is being taught. They support Merit Academy and school choice for parents. They plan to increase staff salaries and right a ship that has been listing for 20 years.
While holding her two-year-old, Nicole Waggoner, one of Merit’s founders, said, “Merit adds educational choice many people want. These families appreciate our virtues, our curriculum, and our school, so our enrollment numbers are through the roof. We’re drawing families up the pass [from Colorado Springs], which contributes to a thriving community.”
Image courtesy Merit Academy.
Seeing smiling faces in the “Bear Den,” one may wonder what challenges Merit Academy has overcome. “Starting a school is not easy,” reflected Pekron, “but it is worth it, especially when you hear your kids talking about the War of 1812, how a cat’s eyes adjust at night, or how they acted responsibly that day. It’s worth every breath.”
So, what are the biggest challenges now? Pekron paused, then said: “No matter how deep the vision and how detailed the plan, the biggest challenge is being at the mercy of others.” Glancing out the window, she continued, “As a contract school, grant foundations did not understand we were cut from the same cloth as a charter school, but different. Most said, ‘Come back when you are chartered.’”
Despite those financial disappointments, the most touching and inspiring funding came from grassroots contributions and encouraging words from supporters all over the country following the September 2021 Federalist article. To you, Merit Academy is deeply grateful.
One of Merit’s house mottos is “Fortune favors the brave.” This spring, Merit Academy has had greater financial support, with grants and donations totaling more than $400,000. Merit board member Mary Sekowski said, “It’s wonderful to receive these blessings of needed financial support that support start-up expenses.”
Seed funding isn’t the only thing start-up schools struggle with. “The facilities piece has been more difficult,” said Waggoner. “There are few available spaces for demanded growth.”
Woodland Park lies west of Colorado Springs at a stunning 8,500 feet elevation. As in most mountain communities, few existing buildings could house a school. Merit’s facility challenges landed it in an old hardware store, one of the only large-enough spaces open.
Pikes Peak as seen from Woodland Park, courtesy of Gwynne Pekron.
While many would view Merit’s experience as a struggle, the newly elected school board recognized a community need to charter Merit and sought a win-win solution for Merit’s space needs. The district’s declining enrollment leaves district taxpayers with a hefty burden to maintain partially empty buildings, costing more than $2.6 million annually.
“The more you spend on buildings, the less you spend on students,” noted Sekowski. “Taxpayers prefer their tax dollars support an increase in staff salary or a boost in student programming rather than pay for half-empty buildings.”
Due to declining enrollment, the district’s building space is at approximately 51 percent of functional capacity, according to a Denver consulting firm the district hired last fall. The capacity is forecasted to decrease to 32 percent at the middle school building and 35 percent at the high school in four years. The taxpayer cost of operation and maintenance for these two buildings alone exceeds $1.5 million per year.
Recognizing Merit’s need for space to grow as a new district charter school, the district explored the possibility of offering Merit space at the half-capacity district middle school, which would decrease district facility expenditures and honor high community support for Merit Academy.
“With Merit paying the building expenses, district funds will be redistributed to students and staff, not spent on underutilized building space,” Waggoner stated. “Besides saving taxpayers money, it honors previous community commitments to learning by using these spaces for their original intent — the education of children. This is especially timely with district consultants discussing school closures.”
This idea generated resistance from a minority in the community that closely resembles nationwide opposition to newly elected conservative school boards. This group has posted vitriol on social media, saying things like “F— Merit” on Facebook, protesting at local school board meetings, yelling at and heckling the newly elected directors, using public comment periods to call directors “racist” and accuse them of trying to establish religion, and identifying with national efforts to stifle charter schools and school choice. One of the new school board directors even had his truck keyed during a board meeting.
Image courtesy Merit Academy.
In March, students celebrated Dr. Seuss, wearing mustaches and reading Dr. Seuss books. As if written for Merit Academy and all parent-initiated schools out there, Dr. Seuss advised, “If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said it would be easy. They just promised it would be worth it.”
Yes, it is worth it. Despite its many challenges, Merit Academy thrives, with steadfast community support. The school opened in fall 2021 with nearly 200 students and a large waitlist. Its 2022-23 enrollment is forecasted to grow to more than 370 full- and part-time students, with additional students on its still-large waitlist.
“We are no longer just a hope or a dream,” Waggoner reflected. “Merit Academy is the school many families have hoped for.”
To learn more about Merit Academy or support it, please visit https://merit.academy.
John Dill is director of the Merit Academy school board and a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
One of Colorado’s largest hospital systems has implemented a new policy that denies organ transplants to patients who have not taken the experimental Covid-19 vaccine under “almost all situations.” All organ donors will also have to be vaccinated under the new policy, and it has already stopped one woman from receiving the life-saving treatment she needs.
Last month, the University of Colorado Health sent a letter to Leilani Lutali informing her that her status on the waiting list for a kidney transplant was “inactivated” for “non-compliance” because she has chosen not to take the jab. She was given 30 days to take the shot, or else she would be removed from the transplant list completely.
Lutali, who has stage 5 renal failure, was told by the hospital in August that she wouldn’t need to be vaccinated to get her new kidney and was only made aware of the hospital’s new segregation policy when she received her letter in the mail – and only AFTER she was able to find a donor she knew who was willing to give her a kidney.
CBS4 Denver spoke with Lutali about the hospital’s policy and their reasoning behind foregoing the rushed vaccine, which she says has “too many unknowns.”
“I said I’ll sign a medical waiver. I have to sign a waiver anyway for the transplant itself, releasing them from anything that could possibly go wrong.
It’s surgery, it’s invasive. I sign a waiver for my life. I’m not sure why I can’t sign a waiver for the Covid shot.”
They also spoke with her donor – Jaimee Fougner – who was outraged that the hospital could decide not to operate when there is a kidney available that will save her friend’s life. Like Lutali, Fougner is also not vaccinated.
“It’s your choice on what treatment you have. In Leilani’s case, the choice has been taken from her.Her life has now been held hostage because of this mandate.
Here I am, willing to be a direct donor to her. It does not affect any other patient on the transplant list. How can I sit here and allow them to murder my friend when I’ve got a perfectly good kidney and can save her life?”
The University of Colorado Health (UCHealth), which operates dozens of medical facilities and hospitals throughout the state, confirmed the segregation policy to the New York Post on Wednesday and claimed they were making the change because transplant patients are 20% more likely to die if they catch Covid-19. But, how much more likely are they to die if they catch Covid before getting a life-saving transplant? Or even without catching covid?
Higher than 20%, that’s for sure. Many of the people on the waiting list are also most likely medically exempt from taking the vaccine.
Not to mention the vaccine is so bad at preventing breakthrough infections that the tyrannical US health order is about to force a third booster dose, which will be most likely followed by perpetual doses every six months – Being vaccinated doesn’t even provide immunity (just check the CDC’s updated definition). Vaccinated patients waiting for an organ are about just as likely to contract a breakthrough case after a transplant as the non vaccinated.
UCHealth doubled down on their refusal to operate on the unvaccinated, saying that several other surgery centers have covid vaccine mandates for their patients in place already, and many more are following suit.
“In almost all situations, transplant patients and living donors are now required to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in addition to meeting other health requirements and receiving additional vaccinations.
Physicians must consider the short and long-term health risks for patients as they consider whether to recommend an organ transplant.”
The hospital’s policy has forced Lutali to search elsewhere for her operation. Unfortunately, she has checked with every surgery center in Colorado who would be able to perform a kidney transplant and none of them will provide care to her because she is unvaccinated. She is now looking outside the state for a hospital that will be willing to take her.
Like Lutali’s donor said, her life is being held hostage over this vaccine mandate. How many others will be denied care and left to perish because of these policies? So much for that “if we save just one life” nonsense. That was never the case.
Lauren Boebert, whose forthright defense of the Second Amendment at a rally for former Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke brought her national attention, on Tuesday won a Republican congressional primary in Colorado.
President Donald Trump retweeted a post from Boebert in which she said, “I am a mother to 4 boys. My husband and I are raising them to be strong men! I refuse to send my children into a socialist nation. Their freedom IS my motivator! Threaten the liberty of Americans, and I’ll be there to hold you accountable!”
“Congratulations on a really great win!” Trump said.
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The president had earlier tweeted support for incumbent Republican Rep. Scott Tipton, who drew 45 percent of the vote compared with 55 percent for the challenger.
Boebert — who operates Shooters Grill, a restaurant in Rifle, Colorado, where all of the waitresses openly carry handguns — will face Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush in the November election.
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“I’m excited and eager to take this fight on to the Democrats and represent the people of the 3rd Congressional District, just like I’ve been promising them I would,” Boebert said after the polls closed, according to The Denver Post.
Her website is an unapologetic, in-your-face declaration of opposition to all that leftist Democrats stand for.
“There is a battle for the heart and soul of our country that I intend on helping win,” Boebert says on the website. “I’m running for Congress to stand up for our conservative values, address our current representatives’ failed promises, and put far-left Democrats back in their place.”
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“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Squad and the rest of these left-wing lunatics are taking a wrecking ball to our country while our current representative stays utterly silent,” she says. “Hard-working, patriotic Americans like you and me don’t want the Green New Deal and socialized medicine. Every time AOC and the rest of the Squad pipes up with another crazy idea, I will remind them that our belief in God, Country and Family are what built the United States of America into the greatest nation the world has ever known.”
Boebert also has taken a strong pro-police stand at a time when law enforcement is under attack across the country.
She crashed an O’Rourke rally last fall to take the former Texas congressman to task for saying he would take away Americans’ AR-15s if elected.
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Boebert was wearing her Glock handgun as she confronted the Democratic candidate.
“I was one of the gun-owning Americans that heard your speech and heard what you had to say, regarding, ‘Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15s and your AK-47s.’ Well, I am here to say, hell no, you’re not,” she said as O’Rourke urged the crowd scolding her to allow her to speak.
Boebert said the only way citizens have to protect themselves against the evil of the world is to be ready to defend themselves.
“I would like to know how you intend to legislate evil. Because it is not the gun, it is the heart of the man that does that,” she said.
Boebert said gun confiscation would strip protection from“American citizens like myself, American mothers — I have four children, I am 5-feet-0, 100 pounds, cannot really defend myself with a fist.”
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
A couple from Buena Park, California, got a sweet surprise when they boarded a plane to bring their adopted baby home in November.
Dustin and Caren Moore tried to have a child of their own for nine years with no success, but when they met a baby girl in need of a family, they were beyond excited to become her parents, according to ABC 7.
“She had me wrapped around her fingers instantly. … I heard her crying outside the room and I started crying,” Dustin recalled.
Following the adoption, the couple boarded a Southwest Airlines flight from Colorado to California but had no idea they were about to receive a ton of support on such a big day.
February 9, Dustin shared the entire story on his Twitter page:
On the plane, the new parents had finally settled into their seats when the baby woke up and needed her diaper changed, so a kind flight attendant named Jenny made room for them in the back, according to Today.
“After a change, Jenny and another passenger complimented my beautiful daughter and politely asked what had prompted a flight with such a young infant,” Dustin wrote, adding “I gave them the shortened adoption story, to which they hastily offered congratulations, and shared a few more kind remarks.”
A few minutes after telling the story to another flight attendant named Bobby, he heard the intercom come on as Bobby announced that the infant was the flight’s special guest.
To the couple’s surprise, all of the passengers began to clap and cheer.
The flight attendants then passed out napkins for everyone to write down any parenting advice they had for the Moore family.
At the end of the trip, Dustin and his wife were presented with 60 napkins with notes that said things like “The hard parts don’t last forever! Congratulations!!”
Dustin shared a few more on his Twitter profile:
Now, the couple keeps the napkins in a scrapbook and said many of the notes have proved helpful since they brought their little girl home.
“All those worries and those fears that we had about, ‘Can we do this? Are people going to be good to our sweet daughter even though we adopted her?’ And everybody who just basically shouted ‘yes’ in unison to each other just made us feel so good, so, so good,” he commented.
“I can’t think of any better way we could have had to bring our daughter home,” Dustin concluded.
For weeks, mysterious unidentified flying objects over the Eastern Plains region of Colorado have vexed residents, law enforcement, the military, and state and federal officials. Those who see them say they appear in the night sky, often several at a time, their locations marked by the light they emit. Audibly buzzing, they hover and maneuver in precise formations.
The mystery of their origin has gripped Colorado, where news of a sighting makes near-daily headlines and no one has yet copped to operating the aircraft. The state’s governor, Jared Polis, deployed the state plane to hunt them down after a pilot believed one of the objects came too close to a Flight for Life helicopter. And a constellation of government agencies has formed a task force to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Representatives from some 77 agencies, including the military and the FBI, met for a closed-door briefing in the small town of Brush on Jan. 6.
“The group is not going to discuss the details of its inner workings, and is not planning to provide incremental updates on its activities,” Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson based in Los Angeles, told The Daily Beast. “But we will inform the public about any important developments.”
The FAA has reached out to UAS test sites, drone companies, and companies that have authorization to operate drones in the area, “but we have not been able to determine that any of these operators were the source of the reported drone flights,” an FAA statement read.
In the vacuum of any definitive answer about who might be responsible for the aircraft, theories have ricocheted around the internet. Media have been drawn to small towns on the Colorado-Nebraska border. A storm chaser crew is on the case. Some observers believe the UFOs could be alien visitors. Other locals say what they’ve been seeing are merely quadcopter-style drones.
“There’s nothing about these sightings that’s inconsistent with drone technologies, so why reach for the most extreme explanation?” Seth Shostak, an astronomer with the SETI Institute in California, which uses powerful sensors to search for aliens, told The Daily Beast.
“Besides, everyone knows that the alien spacecraft prefer the American Southwest,” Shostake joked. “Must be the Tex-Mex cuisine.”
What’s weird, even for those who discount the possibility that the UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin, is the low population of Eastern Colorado, an expanse of rural farmland. Why bother mounting such a sustained campaign of drone aerobatics in a place with so few people and so little industry?
“Everyone knows that the alien spacecraft prefer the American Southwest.”
Unless, of course, people and industry aren’t the targets. Some of the counties where drones have been spotted do butt up against F.E. Warren Air Force Base in neighboring Wyoming. There, airmen at the base man and protect around 200 underground silos housing Minuteman nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), each packing enough firepower to wipe out several cities. It’s disturbing enough to see formations of glowing drones maneuvering in a grid pattern over sparsely populated expanses of land. It’s more disturbing still to see them lingering near nuclear-missile silos.
Since residents first reported the UFOs around Dec. 20, local and state government officials, including the Air Force, have denied they have anything to do with the nocturnal air shows. No one can quite figure out what the apparent drones are doing, or why.
The mystery has become big news in Colorado.
Michael Yowell, a captain at the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, has added drone patrol to his law enforcement beat. He told The Daily Beast he has seen the mysterious objects more than once over Hugo, a town with a population of fewer than 800.
An abnormal red light will appear on the horizon, he said, and soon a drone, or whatever it is, will buzz by overhead. He described the curious phenomenon to The Daily Beast as square in shape with red lights on the corners and a white light in the middle that move around at a consistent speed of about 45 miles per hour at a few hundred feet in the air regardless of the wind, emitting a low hum and high-pitched whine.
“It doesn’t sound like your normal drone,” he said. “It sounds like a motor. It sounds like a jetliner when you’re standing next to an airport.”
The Air Force and the other military branches operate thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles ranging from airliner-size Global Hawk spy drones to Reaper hunter-killers the size of Cessnas. The military equips many of its ground units and ships with hand-launched drones including quadcopter-style models. The small, radio-controlled UAVs help scout ahead of ships and ground troops and patrol sensitive sites such as air bases and potentially missile fields.
“It doesn’t sound like your normal drone. It sounds like a motor. It sounds like a jetliner when you’re standing next to an airport.”
In 2015, one of the Army’s hand-launched Raven drones strayed from Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, flew over the city, and crashed in a man’s yard. An investigation determined the operators had broken Army and FAA rules. The Air Force in particular also uses small drones as targets for developing countermeasures against an enemy’s own drones. The 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren hosts a security squadron that protects the missile fields. Equipped like infantry and riding in Huey helicopters, the security airmen train to defend the ICBMs against protesters, criminals, terrorists, saboteurs and even clueless civilians who might wander toward the silos.
When cheap drones hit the market and terror groups began modifying them to carry explosives, the security airmen started carrying devices to track potential aerial intruders. Louisiana-based Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the service’s ICBMs, confirmed to the Gazette newspaper in Colorado Springs that it conducts counter drone exercises out of F.E. Warren.
According to the Gazette, the security squadron at the base uses equipment developed by Dedrone in San Francisco. The Dedrone tech detects and pinpoints the radio signals that connect drones to their human operators. Testing the tech could require deploying actual drones over the base.
But Air Force Global Strike Command repeatedly has insisted the apparent drones people are seeing over Colorado aren’t its own.
“We can confirm that the drones spotted in Colorado and Nebraska are not from F.E. Warren Air Force Base,” command spokesperson Carla Pampe told The Daily Beast in a statement. “We do have counterdrone systems. But we cannot speak to specifics due to operational security.”
It turns out the Air Force is just as curious about the mystery objects flying near its silos as civilians. “F.E. Warren is working with the FAA, the FBI and state and local authorities to determine the origins and operators,” Pampe said.
On Jan. 13, the Colorado Department of Public Safety announced it was scaling back its investigations into the drone sightings that have turned Eastern Colorado into the epicenter of a baffling post-holiday media sensation.
“Despite all of the reported activity, we are still unaware of any crime being committed,” the department’s director, Stan Hilkey, said in a statement. “While I can’t conclusively say we have solved the mystery, we have been able to rule out a lot of the activity that was causing concern.”
Back in Lincoln County, Captain Yowell believes investigators will likely crack the case with old-fashioned police work. Area law enforcement have been asking residents to report any activity they think might be related to the aerial objects.
“We all agree that the way this is finally going to get resolved is somebody on the ground — or these drones are going to be homed back to a certain location, and that’s where we’re going to get our break,” Yowell said.
Max Briggle, right, holds a sign as he joins other members of the transgender community during a rally on the steps of the Texas Capitol, Monday, March 6, 2017, in Austin, Texas. The group is opposing a “bathroom bill” that would require people to use public bathrooms and restrooms that … Eric Gay/AP Photo
As of January 1, “Jude’s Law” (HB19-1039) went into effect, named after 13-year-old “Jude,” a biological male, who told Fox 31 Denver he went to the vital records office on January 2 to “get my gender and name changed on my birth certificate.”
“I think a lot of us have lived as someone that we’re not,”Jude said. “And we’ve been identifying by something that wasn’t who we are. And for me, that brought a really dark place—a lot of self-hate.”
“I got my old birth certificate and I ripped it,” Jude added. “It was kind of a nice little closure to say, ‘I’m done with you. It’s over.’”
According to Fox 31, LGBTQ lobbying group One Colorado co-wrote Jude’s Law and Democrat Gov. Jared Polis signed it into law.
“A transgender or non-binary person can access any state identity document—a birth certificate, a driver’s license, a state ID without a cumbersome process, like needing a surgery, a court order, or a doctor’s note,”said Daniel Ramos, executive director of One Colorado.
Jude said he has identified as a female since 2015 and began working with One Colorado and testifying in favor of the bill when he was only nine years old.
Fox 31 interviewed Jude’s mother as well:
“The first time she testified, she was little with curls. Remember? You had your little flower dress on,” said Jude’s mother, Jenna, smiling as she looked over at Jude.
“And she’s just come so far. To be able to say that my child is fighting for other people’s human rights—that’s pretty cool, especially when she’s just 13 years old,” Jenna added.
Jude is currently working with Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) to make Jude’s Law a federal law.
“And I think that will be my next step,”Jude said.
In November 2018, Colorado also implemented a policy that allowed state residents to select “X” as their gender, rather than “male” or “female,” on driver licenses.
Given the current state of Colorado’s drug laws, there are no doubt some odd reports coming in to authorities in The Centennial State.
Colorado was one of the first states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana for the masses, which lead to massive tax surpluses and a trend of legal weed in the United States.
But the widespread use of weed has also given Coloradans a dubious reputation for producing incredibly strange news stories.
The latest mysterious tale from out west defies this logic, however, as sober authorities in the state are stumped.
The purpose of recent nighttime drone flights over northeast Colorado has remained a mystery to authorities who are trying to learn the identities of the operators.
The drones have flown over Phillips and Yuma counties for the last week, the Denver Post reported Monday.
The Phillips County Sheriff’s Office cannot explain where the drones are coming from or who is flying them.
The Federal Aviation Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Army Forces Command said they do not have information about the aircraft.
The group of at least 17 drones have estimated wing spans of 6 feet (1.8 meters) and fly between 7 and 10 p.m., Phillips County Sheriff Thomas Elliott said.
The drones remain about 200 to 300 feet (61 to 91 meters) in the air and fly steadily in square patterns of about 25 miles (40 kilometers), Elliott said.“They’ve been doing a grid search, a grid pattern,” Elliott said. “They fly one square and then they fly another square.”
Internet users were quick to point out that no one interviewed in the story attempted to destroy or disarm these drones, suggesting that the authorities may very well be obscuring the truth.
Jack Phillips dropped his federal lawsuit after the State backed off: “Today is a win for freedom. I’m very grateful and looking forward to serving my customers as I always have: with love and respect”
The second attempt by the State of Colorado to punish Jack Phillips and his Masterpiece Cakeshop has come to an end, once again, with a victory for the baker.
Round 1 was the baker’s refusal to create a custom cake for a same-sex marriage, on the ground that it violated the baker’s Christian faith to create a message celebrating same-sex marriage.
The baker also refused to create Halloween cakes and other cakes whose messages he viewed as religiously unacceptable. He didn’t refuse to sell to LGBT people, he just didn’t want to have to create the message. He won the case in the Supreme Court, mostly on procedural grounds with the court not reaching the larger constitutional issues of freedom of religion and freedom of speech (to avoid compelled speech).
On June 26, 2017, the very same day the Supreme Court agreed to take the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, Attorney Autumn Scardina called the cake shop to request a “gender transition” cake. The cake shop declined, so on July 20, 2017, Scardina filed a complaint, with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission….
It appears that Colorado waited for the Supreme Court ruling in the wedding cake case, because it was not until June 28, 2018, that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission issued a finding of probable cause…
The Introduction to the [Bakeshop’s federal lawsuit] Complaint (pdf.) … argues that the cake shop was targeted by the claimant/lawyer and Colorado….
The Complaint focuses on the message that was demanded of the cake shop:
184. After the lawyerdisclosed the design and message of the desired cake, Masterpiece Cakeshop politely declined the request because Phillips cannot in good conscience express the messages that the cake would have communicated (i.e., that sex can be changed, that sex can be chosen, and that sex is determined by perceptions or feelings) or celebrate the event that the cake would have commemorated (i.e., the announcement of a change from one sex to the other based on perceptions and feelings).
185. Phillips would not create a custom cake that expresses those messages for any customer, no matter the customer’s protected characteristics.
186. Masterpiece Cakeshop did not decline this request because of the customer’s transgender status or other protected characteristic. Rather, it declined the request because of the messages that the cake would have expressed.
187. When Masterpiece Cakeshop told the lawyer that it could not create the requested cake, the lawyer asked the shop’s representative to repeat that statement so that someone listening over the speaker phone could hear it.
188. Masterpiece Cakeshop offered to create a different custom cake for the lawyer or to sell the lawyer any of the pre-made items available for purchase in the shop.
* * *
199. The Division acknowledged Masterpiece Cakeshop’s position that it declined to create that custom cake because Phillips did not want to express through his cake art “the idea that a person’s sex is anything other than an immutable God-given biological reality.” Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop Inc., Charge No. CP2018011310, at 3 (Colo. Civil Rights Div. June 28, 2018) (Ex. A).
200. But the Division ignored Masterpiece Cakeshop’s message-based reason for declining to create the cake; instead, the Division concluded that Masterpiece Cakeshop declined to create the cake “based on [the lawyer’s] transgender status.” Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop Inc., Charge No. CP2018011310, at 4 (Colo. Civil Rights Div. June 28, 2018) (Ex. A).
* * *
212. As a general matter, if a discrimination complaint is filed against a Colorado cake artist for declining to create a custom cake expressing a message he or she opposes, Colorado defers to the cake-shop owner’s message-based objection and, consistent with what state law requires, does not “presume” that the owner discriminated against the customer based on his or her protected status. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 24-34-305(3).
213. But if a discrimination complaint is filed against Phillips for declining to create a custom cake expressing a message that conflicts with his faith, Colorado rejects his message-based objection and presumes that he discriminated against the customer based on his or her protected status
The case then worked its way through the federal court.
Significantly, a preliminary injunction hearing was scheduled for March 14-15, 2019. That hearing date may have put pressure on the State, because the State dropped the administrative case against the Cakeshop, and the Cakeshop agreed to drop the federal lawsuit.
The Stipulation of Dismissal (pdf.) in the federal lawsuit provided:
The Parties, through their respective Counsel, hereby submit the following Joint Stipulated Notice of Dismissal Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii):
On March 5, 2019, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission unanimously entered an order dismissing with prejudice the administrative proceeding Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Case No. CR 2018-0012, Charge No. CP2018011310. In light of that action by the Commission, Plaintiffs have agreed to dismiss this case. This dismissal resolves the issues between the Parties to this litigation as set forth in Plaintiffs’ First Amended Verified Complaint. Doc. 51. In light of this joint stipulated dismissal, which is with prejudice as to all claims arising out of or relating to Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Parties respectfully request that the Court vacate all remaining deadlines, including the preliminary injunction hearing presently set for March 14-15, 2019, and close this case. Each Party will bear its, her, or his own costs and attorney fees.
The Court today accepted the parties stipulation, and entered an Order of Dismissal (pdf.):
THIS MATTER comes before the Court on the parties’ Joint Stipulated Notice of Dismissal Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A) ii) (ECF No. 142), filed on March 5, 2019. After a careful review of the stipulation and the file, and pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), it is
ORDERED that all claims asserted by Plaintiffs against Defendants are DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE, with each party to bear its own costs and expenses, including any attorneys’ fees. It is
FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ Amended Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Memorandum of Law in Support (ECF No. 04), Defendants’ Motion for Partial Reconsideration of the Order Denying Motion to Dismiss [Doc. 94] Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e) and 60(b)(1) (ECF No. 107), and Plaintiffs’ Unopposed Motion to Restrict Public Access to the Reply in Support of Amended Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Accompanying Exhibits (ECF No. 132) are DENIED AS MOOT. It is FURTHER ORDERED that the preliminary injunction hearing set for March 14-15, 2019 and all other deadlines are VACATED. It is
FURTHER ORDERED that the Clerk of the Court is directed to close this case.
So Round 2 is over. Masterpiece Cakeshop prevailed.
The Colorado Attorney General’s office today announced that the State and Masterpiece Cakeshop have mutually agreed to end their ongoing state and federal court litigation.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission will voluntarily dismiss the state administrative action against Masterpiece Cakeshop and its owner, Jack Phillips, and Mr. Phillips will voluntarily dismiss his federal court case against the State. Each side will bear their own costs and attorneys’ fees. This agreement does not affect the ability of Autumn Scardina, the complainant in the state administrative case, to pursue a claim on her own.
“After careful consideration of the facts, both sides agreed it was not in anyone’s best interest to move forward with these cases. The larger constitutional issues might well be decided down the road, but these cases will not be the vehicle for resolving them. Equal justice for all will continue to be a core value that we will uphold as we enforce our state’s and nation’s civil rights laws,” said Weiser, whose office represents the Commission and the director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division.
The Commission’s vote to dismiss the state administrative case was unanimous.
Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the Cakeshop, posted:
BIG WIN for Jack! Colorado Ends Crusade against Cake Artist
Six years, one U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and a second lawsuit later, the state of Colorado has finally stopped its hostility toward cake artist Jack Phillips and his faith.
Today, the state officially agreed to dismiss its case against Jack.
This is a big win for Jack – and for religious freedom! Praise God! It has been a long, difficult journey for Jack. He has endured not only multiple drawn-out legal processes, but also hate mail, nasty phone calls, and even death threats. Yet through it all, God has proven faithful. And now, we hope that Jack can finally move on….
The state’s decision to dismiss its most recent prosecution of Jack is HUGE! And it’s certainly been a long time coming.
But we shouldn’t let this victory lead us to complacency.
Jack has been targeted multiple times by customers seeking to harass him, including people requesting cakes celebrating Satan. And it wouldn’t surprise us if Jack is harassed again because of his faith.
The targeting of the Cakeshop has cost it business, but not yet put it out of business:
“Today is a win for freedom. I’m very grateful and looking forward to serving my customers as I always have: with love and respect,” Phillips told Fox News, adding that he never imagined this chapter of his life — which has cost him over 40 percent of his business — when he opened up his cake shop years ago.
Let’s see if Colorado starts Round 3. You know it wants to.
Voices should be heard even if they aren’t able to scream the loudest.
Liberals claim to believe in “equality” and standing up for the “little guy”in the face of bullies, but a movement gaining steam in blue states is putting that in doubt. Frustrated that they didn’t win in 2016, the left has a new plan: Sidestep the Constitution and effectively get rid of the Electoral College.
Colorado is the latest state to jump on board. Last week, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis announced that he would sign a bill which basically re-writes the electoral process, and could pave the way to letting big cities dominate every future presidential election.
The liberal called the Electoral College an “undemocratic relic,” apparently believing that he knows better than the Founding Fathers. “I’ve long supported electing the president by who gets the most votes,” Polis declared on Feb. 24, according to The Hill.
That plan would force Colorado’s electors — the people who actually cast the official votes for president — to side with whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, no matter what. By changing the regulations at the state level but still using puppet electors, liberals would avoid amending the Constitution to get their way.
“It’s a way to move towards direct election of the president,”Polis said.
At first glance, it’s no big deal. Democracy means that people vote and the person with the most votes wins, right?
The problem, of course, is that America was founded as a republicfor reason — and it’s quickly evident just how dangerous it could be to bypass the Electoral College.
The United States is a huge and diverse country. The whims and demands of voters in Manhattan are drastically different from the concerns of rural farmers in Iowa — yet the voices of those smaller locations are just as important, especially when you realize that huge percentages of our food and supplies come from the heartland.
The entire purpose of having state and local governments is that a far-off central government can’t bully the rest of the country, but that’s exactly what would happen if the Electoral College were abandoned.
A presidential candidate would only need to win a handful of big cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, completely ignoring the concerns of the interior of the vast nation. The voices of millions of Americans who live outside of coastal population centers would be ignored.
Ironically, the plan could also mean that the votes of Colorado’s own citizens don’t really count, because they would be negated if they don’t match the whims of the popular vote. As one Colorado county commissioner rightly pointed out, “we do not support the National Popular Vote, which allows California and New York to decide Colorado’s votes for President.”
But the Rocky Mountain State isn’t alone. An eye-opening number of other states are joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, all moving toward similar legislation.
“The states making up the compact, which already includes New York, Illinois and all the New England states except for New Hampshire, would commit to awarding their electoral votes to whomever wins the popular vote nationally, regardless of the results in the Electoral College,”The Hill explained.
That Interstate Compact is not likely to have enough support to make a difference in the 2020 election, but it could play a major role in subsequent votes unless conservatives stand up and stop it. The United States of America was founded on the separation of power, not a no-holds-barred popularity contest.
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch,” it’s been said.
Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan, before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico. Follow Benjamin on Facebook
There has been a lot of discussion in recent months about the legislative push from Democrats in a number of states to expand the “right” of abortion up until the moment prior to birth — even as the left routinely denies that late-term abortions are a thing — so a conservative pundit used hidden cameras to try and find out more about how a woman would go about getting a late-term abortion.
Steven Crowder, who is typically known for his hilarious takedowns of leftist absurdity, abandoned any pretense at humor for this grave topic. Instead, he paired up with two women who would wear hidden cameras to obtain undercover footage inside an abortion clinic in Boulder, Colorado, where late-term abortions are legal.
Those two women were Muriel, who was 25 weeks pregnant with a baby named “Rose,” and her friend Kat, who would accompany her as “moral support” as she pretended to be in search of an abortion procedure at the clinic.
While the goal may initially have been to catch damning evidence on video about the clinic and late-term abortions, the two women were instead relegated to the clinic’s waiting room for quite some time, where they engaged in a shocking and heartbreaking discussion with another woman identified only as “Patient X,” who was waiting to receive a late-term abortion.
Patient X revealed that she was somewhere between 28 and 32 weeks — 8 months — into her pregnancy. At 32 weeks, an unborn baby is all but fully-formed and completely viable outside the womb, presuming there are no serious life-threatening deformities or serious health issues. Indeed, Patient X further revealed a short time later that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her unborn baby, as had been revealed by prior checkups, specific tests, sonograms and ultrasounds.
In the meantime, the patient quietly explained to the two women what she had learned was involved in the late-term abortion procedure, which began with an injection into the womb of a lethal cocktail of chemicals that would stop the unborn baby’s heartbeat within ten minutes to a few hours.
She then noted that the recipient of the procedure had to walk around for the next few days still carrying the dead baby, and worried about the possibility of contracting sepsis, or an infection of the bloodstream, from the dead infant still being carried in the womb, not to mention other risks the procedure posed, such as a damaged or perforated uterus.
Patient X mentioned that she had attempted to ask the doctor about her concerns, but he had “Kind of shoved it off like it was no big deal.” She further revealed that this was her third attempt at obtaining an abortion, as two previous efforts — first at 10 weeks, again at 18 weeks — had been unsuccessful for one reason or another.
Incredibly, a nurse poked her head into the waiting room at one point to suspiciously ask the two women if “Patient X” had said “anything odd” to them, and noted how “nervous” the clinic got when random patients chatted among themselves, because, “There’s a whole anti-choice movement of people that get into the waiting rooms and then sit in the waiting rooms and talk people out of their (abortions).”
It is worth pointing out that Patient X, who admitted to having already birthed two children, was far from gung-ho about getting the abortion, as she was obviously struggling with the choice to terminate her pregnancy, and she thought it was “not right” to end a pregnancy so late and suggested it all boiled down to money.
She further revealed that her husband largely disagreed with her choice to get an abortion and worried how it would impact their relationship going forward. She also expressed her own indecision on the irrevocable choice she was on the verge of making, as it was counter to everything she had believed and learned in her Catholic upbringing.
The video later showed that, after the two women had left the clinic, they prayed on behalf of Patient X, that God would intervene and prevent her from obtaining the abortion that day in order to save the innocent unborn baby’s life.
Unfortunately, it is unknown whether Patient X followed through on getting that abortion or not, and Crowder pointed out in his video that, even if late-term abortions were as rare as abortion advocates claim it to be — purportedly only about 1 percent of all abortions — there would still be more than 10,000 such late-term abortions every year, a monstrous and horrifying figure.
Sadly, far too many elected Democrats — including many of the prominent candidates running for president — see nothing wrong with murdering innocent babies, as they are all-in with a party and movement that has rejected God and is increasingly anti-life and anti-women… pretty much the opposite of what they claim with a smile when speaking to average Americans who abhor the practice of late-term abortions.
Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments. He has covered current events and politics for Conservative Tribune since 2014.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Christian Colorado baker cannot be forced to make a cake for a same-sex marriage when the ceremony violates his religious principles.
Monday’s 7-2 decision reversed a Colorado court’s ruling against baker Jack Phillips, who in 2012 refused to bake a cake for gay couple Charlie Craig and David Mullins. The decision focused on the initial ruling against Phillips from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and left untouched the broader issue of whether professionals who oppose same-sex marriage can be compelled to provide goods and services for those ceremonies, USA Today reported.
“The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts,”the majority opinion said, noting the broader battle in which this case was one part. “These disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority decision, while Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
“The laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect gay persons and gay couples in the exercise of their civil rights, but religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression,” Kennedy wrote, according to The Hill.
“While it is unexceptional that Colorado law can protect gay persons in acquiring products and services on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other member of the public, the law must be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion.”
The case presented “difficult questions as to the proper reconciliation of at least two principles. The first is the authority of a State and its governmental entities to protect the rights and dignity of gay persons who are, or wish to be, married but who face discrimination when they seek goods or services,”Kennedy wrote.
“The second is the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms under the First Amendment,”he wrote.
Kennedy said Colorado failed that test.
“Whatever the confluence of speech and free exercise principles might be in some cases, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s consideration of this case was inconsistent with the State’s obligation of religious neutrality. The reason and motive for the baker’s refusal were based on his sincere religious beliefs and convictions,” Kennedy wrote.
Kennedy noted that the case does represent a collision of rights, according to The Washington Post.
“The Court’s precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws,” he wrote. “Still, the delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power needed to be determined in an adjudication in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself would not be a factor in the balance the State sought to reach. That requirement, however, was not met here.”
Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan voted with the majority along with Justices Kennedy, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts.
Phillips had lost every round of his lengthy legal fight until Monday. Phillips said the question was not about the customers but rather about violating his own principles.
“It’s not about turning away these customers, it’s about doing a cake for an event — a religious sacred event — that conflicts with my conscience,” he said, according to Fox News.
The Trump administration supported Phillips’ legal claims.
A Christian baker from Colorado received an unexpected blessing from the administration of President Donald Trump last week when the Justice Department filed a brief on his behalf to the Supreme Court, which is slated to hear his religious liberty case upon returning to the bench next month.
For Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, the trouble started five years ago when he politely refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. Although he only meant to protect his religious beliefs, he wound up triggering a chain reaction of undeserved backlash.
It included death threats from angry activists, character assassinations from the liberal media, a judgment of illegal discrimination from a Colorado civil rights commission and an affirmation of the commission’s ruling by a lower court.
The tide finally began to turn in Phillips’ favor in late June when the Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal and decide whether he actually discriminated against the gay couple when he refused to bake their cake over his religious objections.
And just on Thursday, he won yet another “huge” victory when Trump’s DOJ filed an amicus brief defending his decision five years earlier to not bake the gay couple’s wedding cake. In the brief, acting Solicitor General Jeffrey B. Wall specifically argued that allowing the lower court’s ruling against Phillips to stand would create a violation of the First Amendment “where public accommodations law compels someone to create expression for a particular person or entity and to participate, literally or figuratively, in a ceremony or other expressive event.”
“When Phillips designs and creates a custom wedding cake for a specific couple and a specific wedding, he plays an active role in enabling that ritual, and he associates himself with the celebratory message conveyed,”he added. “Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights.”
This is good. Very good, in fact.
And according to The Washington Times, the DOJ’s surprising decision to file a brief in Phillips’ case “raises the possibility that the government will also ask for time to argue in front of the justices when the case goes for oral argument.”
That would be even better.
During the administration of former President Barack Hussein Obama, a man who loved sitting idly by as Christians were persecuted, the DOJ said nothing about Phillips, instead choosing to allow him to suffer the indignity of being persecuted for his Christian beliefs. But with Trump in the White House, it appears those days are finally behind us. Thank God.
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