“Christian privilege” in Colorado mountain town’s amphitheater fuels church-and-state storm

DILLON – Town leaders’ refusal to reconsider a longstanding practice of letting a Christian church use the Dillon Amphitheater for Sunday prayers has hurled the town into a national storm over worship in public facilities.

They now face potential lawsuits from pressure groups. Freedom from Religion Foundation attorneys are demanding an end to any preferential treatment for the Dillon Community Church. The rival First Liberty Institute sent a countervailing letter urging continued use, warning that recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions favor greater mixing of church and state.

Town staffers hit with multiplying requests from a diversity of religious groups to rent the amphitheater had proposed to shut down access by all outside groups and allow only town-sponsored events such as rock concerts. But town council members on June 11 rejected that approach and voted 5-1 to allow continued use by the church. Two members derided Dillon’s Denver-based contract attorney Kathleen Kelly for creating roadblocks after she raised constitutional concerns. Kelly resigned the next day.

The drama lit up chat sites — Friendly Athiest commenters decried “Christian privilege” — and led to a special meeting Wednesday night where town leaders faced a cacophony from residents. Then leaders accepted advice from a new attorney and back-tracked, temporarily prohibiting the use of the amphitheater by all groups until leaders set a legally defensible policy.

“There needs to be a separation of church and state. We cannot favor one denomination over another,” town manager Nathan Johnson said in an interview. “Now with the popularity of the venue we have more and more people reaching out. Everybody wants to be down there,” he said.

“If we are going to open up the amphitheater, we have to open it up for everybody.”

For more than 40 years, Dillon leaders have let the Dillon Community Church, a non-denominational Christian organization that owns a building a few blocks away, run evangelical “outreach” events appealing to Colorado high country visitors.

The amphitheater was built in 1993 as a low-key community band shell. Town officials have transformed it into one of the nation’s trendiest concert venues by investing $10 million, including a $1 million grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, for an overhaul completed in 2018. Seats on a grassy hillside look out on the blue waters of Lake Dillon, a Denver Water reservoir, and majestic snow-splotched mountain peaks. Town officials charge a $25,000 fee for promoters of town-sponsored concerts. The venue holds up to 3,656 people. Town-sponsored activities also include country line dancing and yoga.

But religious worship is now canceled.

Dillon Community Church officials had lauded town leaders’ initial stance. “We are grateful that the council voted down the new policy that would limit all non-profit organizations that are not city-sponsored,” their posting said.

Senior pastor Jim Howard said Friday he’s confident town council members will sort out future access. “If they say we can’t use it while they figure out the legalities, we’ll stay in our building. We definitely don’t want a lawsuit,” Howard said.

The church paid a $1,100 annual rental fee, town officials said, and Howard said his 220-member church draws 300 to 800 people to the Sunday worship events.

Church members have mobilized. “Dillon Community Church should be grandfathered into whatever contract. They’ve been here for over 40 years,” church representative Wendy Myers told leaders at the packed special meeting. “It attracts an incredible number of our visitors who come to the county every single summer and love coming to church.”

She and others advocated opening the amphitheater to all religious groups. Former council member Tim Westerberg supports that but also spoke out against new council members’ political tactics. “They don’t seem to care about what the community thinks. They don’t seem to care about what their attorney says. They don’t seem to care about what the Constitution says. It’s just damn the torpedoes full speed away, bulldoze ahead our agenda.”

Problems around prayers in the amphitheater arose earlier this year when other religious groups, including a Jewish synagogue, Native American tribes, and people of various faiths planning weddings asked to rent the facility, Johnson said. “Everybody is attracted to the lake, the natural beauty of the lake,” he said.

“It’s a dilemma because an expectation has been set” in allowing the Dillon Community Church events.

When other religious groups requested access, “we put them on hold,” he said. “That’s what started this conversation. We haven’t told anyone ‘no’ – at least that I’m aware of. We want to have clear and definitive direction from the town council on what is allowed and not allowed in this setting.”

If Dillon officials excluded any other religious group, members of that group could file a civil rights lawsuit, said Madeline Ziegler, staff attorney for the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has filed a legal petition seeking town communications with the Dillon Community Church and other groups to explore a possible lawsuit.

Dillon’s practice has sent “a signal to the town residents that their government prefers Christianity and that Christians will be treated better than other people in this town. That’s not a message that the people’s representatives should be allowed to send,” Ziegler said.

Dillon could avoid a lawsuit by setting a formal policy that includes “a welcoming and inclusive message that all are welcome and equally allowed to use the town’s facilities,” she said.  Otherwise, town leaders would be acting to ensure “the continued dominance of one church that has the backing of the town over all other religious organizations.”

Attorneys with the Texas-based First Liberty Institute, a conservative Christian legal organization devoted to”restoring religious liberty,” have prevailed in cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices have decided that “history and tradition” must be considered in determining whether government is too intertwined with religion.

Senior attorney Lea Patterson, in her letter sent Tuesday, encouraged Dillon leaders “to continue to allow the church to rent the amphitheater” so as not to invite a lawsuit.

Finding space for religion in Colorado increasingly presents challenges. Soaring real estate prices mean church groups can be hard-pressed to afford buildings, said Jon Stavney, director of the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, which supports local leaders. “Look at the cost of housing. If you are a church, it makes sense to use public space at a reduced cost,” Stavney said.

In the Eagle Valley west of Vail, the Redeemer church rents space for Sunday worship at the public Brush Creek Elementary School.

For elected leaders, deciding to end a longstanding public worship tradition such as the Dillon Community Church’s use of the town amphitheater can be politically perilous because leaders in small towns typically have to face down residents in grocery aisles, he said.

“If I were in their shoes, and this entity had been using a public space for a long time, I would have some loyalty to the history of that group using that facility.”