One Colorado’s Next Chapter

Protecting Our Victories, Leaving No One Behind

By Dave Montez, Executive Director of One Colorado

Four months ago, when marriage equality became law in Colorado and thousands of our families were finally recognized as equal under the law, our community proudly celebrated. 
For One Colorado, the state’s leading LGBT advocacy organization, this victory was the culmination of several years of hard work fighting to ensure relationship recognition for all Coloradans.

Like clockwork, about a moment or two after this win, I started hearing the same question from members of the LGBT community:

“Now that we’ve won marriage, when is One Colorado closing its doors?”

It’s understandable to wonder, but ultimately, I don’t think we are asking ourselves the right question. What we really should ask is: Do opponents of equality show any signs of slowing down?

For a definitive answer, look no further than the 2015 legislative session. At virtually every turn, we’ve seen a new attempt to take our families backward. A few weeks ago, it was dishonest legislation designed to add even more barriers to the everyday lives of transgender Coloradans. Only days later, anti-equality legislators in the state Senate voted for a bill that would roll back critical workplace protections for our community and make it easier to discriminate against Coloradans on the basis of race, sex, religion, and sexual orientation. And right now, under the guise of religious freedom, legislation is being considered that would allow people to simply refuse to follow laws they don’t like — even though freedom of religion is already protected by the First Amendment to our Constitution.

These new “right to discriminate” bills would open up a huge can of worms with serious long- term consequences, including neverending legal challenges by people trying to abuse the system and disregard the rule of law. For example, a high school guidance counselor could refuse to help a gay teenager by saying it goes against his/her religious beliefs.

We can’t afford to live in a Colorado where discrimination is the law of the land. The only way to guarantee that doesn’t happen is by standing up to these attacks, protecting our victories, and making it clear to our elected officials that we will no longer accept our families being used as a political chess piece.

Just last week, at One Colorado’s 2015 Lobby Day, more than 200 LGBT people and our allies from all across the state came to the Capitol to deliver that very message.

But one single event will never be enough. We cannot slow down until we’ve made sure we have done everything we can to protect every single member of Colorado’s LGBT community.

That’s why the next chapter of One Colorado’s work means continuing to fight for LGBT young people who still face bullying and harassment in our schools. Through our statewide advocacy, we’ve built a network of nearly 200 gay-straight alliances in middle schools, high schools, and colleges across Colorado. Now it’s time to take our efforts to the next level – empowering the next generation of students who will be Colorado’s future civic and political leaders.

We’re beginning to do this work through One Colorado’s Leadership Council, which is training LGBT young people and their straight allies to run for student government, as well as developing community service opportunities to build bridges between GSAs and other student organizations.

We must also put an end to the overwhelming discrimination that transgender Coloradans face in every aspect of their lives. That means continuing the work of One Colorado’s health policy program, which allowed us to help advocate for the successful removal of language in Colorado’s health insurance plans that excluded transgender people.

It also means modernizing our state’s birth certificate laws, bringing them in line with federal policies, and making the process less invasive for transgender people trying to update the gender on their identity documents. One Colorado is helping to advance this issue in the state legislature, because we know that not having consistent government documents that match your gender can lead to being denied housing, employment opportunities, and even the fundamental right to vote.

One Colorado’s long-term vision is a state where our families can finally feel comfortable living openly and honestly in communities all across Colorado — from the Eastern Plains to the Western Slope. And until we’ve achieved that mission, our work must and will continue.