In an election year when state ballots contained an unusually large number of citizen-initiated ballot measures, Christians nationwide closely watched two referendums in Colorado, where voters rejected proposed state amendments on parental rights and taxation of churches and other nonprofit organizations.
Amendment 17 would have granted parents the right “to direct and control the upbringing, education, values, and discipline of their children.” Amendment 11 would have ended property-tax exemptions for a majority of the state’s churches, charities, and nonprofits.
Early polls showed Amendment 17, written and supported by Virginia-based Of the People, enjoyed a comfortable lead. The measure promised to give parents a level playing field in battling schools, social service agencies, or other government bodies in child-rearing disputes.
But Amendment 17 went down in a 57-to-43 percent defeat. Amendment supporters were quick to blame the opposition’s “scare-tactics” media campaign as well as limited support from pro-family groups such as Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family.
Focus officially supported the measure but did not actively promote it after Bill Armstrong, a conservative Christian and former Republican senator from Colorado, expressed concerns that the measure could harm the state’s children.
Protect Our Children, a coalition that opposed Amendment 17, said the measure would lead to lawsuits, enable one parent to dictate a religious curriculum to a public-school classroom, and prevent social service agencies from protecting kids from parental child abuse.
Of the People spent an estimated $400,000 promoting the amendment. The group—most of whose key leaders are conservative Catholics—will continue its efforts to promote parental rights through state legislatures nationwide. The parental rights issue is unlikely to go away (CT, April 29, 1996, p. 57). Bills are pending in 28 state legislatures as well as Congress.
TAX STATUS RETAINED: Amendment 11, which would have eliminated state property-tax exemptions for 7,500 properties owned by churches, charities, arts organizations, and zoos, lost soundly, 82 to 18 percent.
Authored by John Patrick Michael Murphy, a Colorado Springs attorney, radio talk-show host, and crusading ex-Catholic (CT, March 4, 1996, p. 74), Amendment 11 would have maintained exemptions only for those organizations using their property to fulfill a “social duty,” such as education or housing the disadvantaged.
Measure supporters spent less than $8,000 on their campaign. Focus on the Family founder and president James Dobson called Amendment 11 “sinister,” “downright stupid,” and “an idea out of absolute left field.” If the measure had passed, Focus would have been assessed $500,000 in property taxes annually on its five-year-old Colorado Springs campus.
Colorado Springs’ 70 evangelical ministries were virtually invisible in the $600,000 campaign against Amendment 11, which focused instead on how the measure would force churches to close, hospitals to decrease services, and Little League fields to be sold.
Murphy says he will explore the concept of taxing nonprofits with the Colorado Legislature and may return with another, revamped voter initiative.
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