By Austen Erblat | CBS News
A Christian camp in Bailey is dismissing a lawsuit against the Colorado Department of Early Childhood as part of a settlement, in which the agency says religious organizations are exempt from a rule dealing with gender identity.
Camp IdRaHaJe filed the lawsuit in federal court against Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, and Carin Rosa, director of the department’s Division of Early Learning Licensing and Administration, in May. The camp said that a requirement from the department that camps allow children to use facilities that align with their gender identity violates the camp’s longstanding practices and their religious freedom.
The policy at the time asked the camp, “to choose between upholding its Biblical beliefs about biological sex and risk losing its license or abandoning its beliefs and mission by forcing girls and boys to shower, dress, and share sleeping quarters with campers of the opposite sex,” Camp IdRaHaJe Executive Director Mike DeBoer said in a statement at the time. “We are asking the court to allow us to operate consistent with our beliefs and protect our campers from a gender ideology agenda.”
As part of the settlement, camp officials asked the department to affirm that the camp is not subject to the gender identity rules that are part of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, as it’s a private Christian organization, not a “place of public accommodation.”
The department, however, says those exemptions were long-standing, that it’s “not aware of any reason the regulations cited in the Complaint would have prevented the Camp from opening or continuing to operate this summer,” and that it never took any action against the camp based on the gender identity rules.
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