FFRF’s input helped force a Colorado town board to discontinue giving a local church preferential treatment of using a town-owned amphitheater.
The Dillon Town Council voted unanimously during a special meeting June 19 to overturn an earlier decision to allow the Dillon Community Church to use the town’s amphitheater this summer.
The special meeting had been called after the town government found itself in an uncomfortable legal position following the 5-1 vote the previous week that extended an informal policy that has allowed the church to host Sunday services at the amphitheater for years.
Dillon’s town attorney Kathleen Kelly announced her resignation following that June 11 meeting where the Town Council went against her legal advice. Kelly had raised legal concerns that the town’s longstanding arrangement with the church could violate the First Amendment, since other private groups haven’t been allowed the same access to the amphitheater.
CBS News reported: “The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the town, highlighting its vulnerability to lawsuits if the church truly is being given special treatment compared to other nonprofits. The FFRF argues that other nonprofit groups should have the chance to rent the amphitheater and that the church should pay the same rental rate, if there is a cost at all.”
The council has had a longstanding informal agreement with Dillon Community Church, giving it exclusive access to the Dillon Amphitheater for its Sunday services.
“Allowing the church to use the amphitheater every week to the exclusion of all other churches, religious organizations and/or other secular community groups or individuals who wish to use this public facility impermissibly advances religion,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line wrote to Dillon Mayor Carolyn Skowyra. “This arrangement demonstrates not only the town’s preference for religion over nonreligion, but also a favoritism of Christianity over all other faiths and Dillon Community Church over all other churches.”
The Denver Post wrote an editorial, backing FFRF’s position:
“Our public facilities can’t be run on a first-come-first-serve basis for 40 years. When you add in the specter of religious favoritism by a government entity, all of a sudden you’ll have threats of lawsuits on your hands.
“We imagine Dillon Community Church expected this day would come. They had a good run at the theater and we hope they can continue to use the facility sometimes, but at the end of the day, it belongs to taxpayers.”
