Christian Summer Camp Sues Colorado Over ‘Transgender’ Rule
A Christian camp in Colorado has filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the state from forcing it to violate its religious and commonsense beliefs about biological sex.
Camp IdRaHaJe, which derives its name from the song “I’d Rather Have Jesus,” filed a lawsuit on Monday, May 12, to stop Colorado from forcing it “to surrender its religious character, beliefs, and exercise to maintain a license to operate in Colorado just like everyone else.”
The camp, which is being represented by lawyers with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), has operated in Bailey, Colorado since 1948. It has maintained a resident camp license in the state since 1995.
The Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which issues resident camp licenses, recently amended its regulations requiring children’s camps to “allow campers to access bathing, dressing, and sleeping facilities designated to the opposite sex,” ADF notes.
Indeed, the updated regulation states that resident camps must allow campers:
- The use of gender-segregated showers that are consistent with their gender identity.
- To sleep in the same room or tent with individuals whose gender identity is consistent with their gender identity.
- The use of gender-segregated toilet facilities that are consistent with their gender identity.
- To sleep in the same room or tent with individuals that are consistent with their gender identity on backpacking or camping trips.
The regulations also stipulate that “[i]n gender-segregated facilities where undressing in the presence of others occurs, resident camps shall make reasonable accommodations to allow
access to areas for undressing consistent with an individual’s gender identity.”
Camp IdRaHaJe requested an exemption from the regulations, due to its religious beliefs. The camp is a “Christ-centered organization” that “believes in the power of camp ministry to win souls to Jesus Christ. It exists so that all who enter its gates would experience God in a new way and would say, ‘I’d rather have Jesus more than anything!’”
It doesn’t take a neurosurgeon to figure out that permitting boys into girls’ showers, bathrooms and sleeping quarters, and vice versa, would violate the camp’s religious beliefs and hamper it from effectively carrying out its evangelical mission.
But the Department denied the request. The camp then filed its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.
“The Colorado Department of Early Childhood (“the Department”) is requiring religious children’s camps like IdRaHaJe to forgo their religious character, beliefs, and exercise to operation in Colorado,” the lawsuit claims, adding,
The lawsuit points out that the regulations would even “force the Camp to allow campers to share a tent or room with members of the opposite sex on IdRaHaJe’s off-site camping and backpacking trips.”
The camp can either comply with the Department’s regulations and violate its religious beliefs, the lawsuit states, or adhere to its beliefs and face revocation or suspension of its license and fines.
“Putting the Camp to that choice is unconstitutional,” the lawsuit reads. “IdRaHaJe needs declaratory and injunction relief to remedy this religious discrimination and to allow it to operate in Colorado as a children’s camp without sacrificing its religious character, beliefs, or exercise.”
ADF Legal Counsel Andrea Dill issued a statement after the lawsuit was filed.
“The government has no place telling religious summer camps that it’s ‘lights out’ for upholding their religious beliefs about human sexuality,” Dill said.
“Camp IdRaHaJe exists to present the truth of the Gospel to children who are building character and lifelong memories. But the Colorado government is putting its dangerous agenda – that is losing popularity across the globe – ahead of its kids.”
Dill added,
Three cheers for Camp IdRaHaJe’s refusal to play along with Colorado’s gender insanity. Please pray the courts will uphold Camp IdRaHaJe’s constitutional rights and allow it to continue its ministry to the 3,000 children that attend the camp every year.
The case is Camp IdRaHaJe Association v. Roy.
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Photo from Camp IdRaHaJe.
