One might be tempted to think that these conservative Christians' animosity toward transgender people is rooted less in theology than in unquestioned traditions, irreligious dogmas, and political expedience.

Eight percent of Coloradans now identify as atheists, double the figure from just a decade ago, according to the recently released Pew Religious Landscape Study. Another ten percent identify as agnostic, and a total of forty percent say they’re religiously unaffiliated.

Joel Estes, namesake of Estes Park, brought five slaves into Colorado, Chloé Duplessis pointed out at a recent meeting of the Black Coloradan Racial Equity Study Commission. As Elaine Tassy reports for CPR, based on a handout from Duplessis, Estes took the slaves “back to Missouri and put them on his farm, gave them some livestock and provisions to last for a year and freed them a year before Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation.”

Regardless of the exact numbers, giving religious people exemptions to various laws effectively treats other people as second-class citizens.

When I met Erin Lee and her husband in September 2022 at an event sponsored by the Independence Institute (which publishes a column of mine through Complete Colorado), the Lees generally were accepting of LGBTQ people. They believed that, in their specific case, an overzealous LGBTQ activist at school had convinced their daughter that she was transgender, when really she was just a confused and disaffected young girl. They didn’t think their case illustrated a general problem with LGBTQ people or with the LGBTQ movement.

Every decent American is shocked, outraged, and saddened by the July 13 attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the resulting murder of a bystander and wounding of two others. The perpetrator came within maybe an inch of murdering the former president.