Colorado Democrat Governor Jared Polis bills himself as a “western libertarian” who supports freedom and limited government. But under his watch, the Centennial State has become perhaps the most anti-free speech state in the country, racking up a string of rebukes in the courtroom for assaulting Americans’ First Amendment freedoms.
In the most recent defeat for Polis’s government, the Supreme Court ruled on March 31 in Chiles v. Salazar in an 8-1 decision that Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy” unconstitutionally restricts free speech when applied to certain forms of talk therapy.
The Colorado law in question effectively criminalizes the act of counselors helping minors work through unwanted gender confusion and same-sex attraction. While the ruling does not outright invalidate Colorado’s law, a lower court must now apply strict scrutiny to it, meaning it is unlikely to survive, as AMAC Newsline previously reported.
The law was especially discriminatory toward religious Coloradans and Christians in particular. Under the provisions of the law, if a minor boy believed that he was a girl and a licensed counselor attempted to help him accept and embrace his biological sex, the counselor could face legal repercussions.
But this is just the most recent instance in which the Court was forced to remind Governor Polis and Colorado Democrats that Christians have rights in this country.
Just three years earlier, in 2023, the Supreme Court rebuked Colorado for attempting to force a Christian web designer to promote same-sex weddings in violation of her sincerely held religious beliefs. In 303 Creative v. Elenis, a majority of the justices affirmed that artists cannot be forced to create messages with which they disagree.
That legal loss for Polis and Democrats follows yet another ruling, albeit much narrower, in 2017, which found that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (which ironically has primarily attacked residents’ civil rights) violated baker Jack Phillips’s rights when it punished him for not baking a cake for a gay wedding.
Polis was not governor when this case was making its way through the legal system. But as a congressman, he signed onto an amicus brief urging the Court to allow state officials to harass Phillips and force him to bake the cake or pay business-crushing penalties.
One wonders how Polis squares his supposedly “libertarian” beliefs with supporting the use of government power to compel private citizens to create things that violate their personal beliefs. Or how Polis claims to want “limited government” but cheered on an unelected and unaccountable government commission as it attempted to fine a private citizen into bankruptcy for having the “wrong” opinion about gay marriage.
Despite the clear rebuke in 2017 by the Court, Polis has not stepped in to protect Phillips from further harassment. Following Phillips’s victory, a “transgender” attorney subsequently tried to target the Christian baker for not baking a cake to celebrate a “gender transition.” Yet as governor, Polis has sat on the sidelines. The clear intent of this case once again is to ruin Phillips financially and destroy his business by weaponizing the legal system against him in retaliation for his Christian faith.
Several recent court cases further illustrate Polis’s antipathy toward First Amendment freedoms.
The first case began in 2023 when Polis signed a law banning abortion pill reversal services. Pro-life pregnancy centers offer this treatment to women who wish to stop the abortion process after taking the first abortion pill. Despite multiple instances where this practice has resulted in the birth of healthy babies, Polis falsely claimed that abortion pill reversals are “unscientific.”
A federal judge issued a permanent injunction on the law, and a Catholic clinic sued the state, arguing that the law violates the First Amendment. Earlier this year, the clinic was vindicated when a court ordered Colorado to pay $5.4 million to settle the case.
Another case currently making its way through the courts challenges a Colorado law that requires businesses to use someone’s “preferred pronouns.”
Additionally, as LifeSite News reported last year, Colorado’s Department of Early Childhood – under Polis’s leadership – attempted to force a Christian camp to allow men to shower next to girls. Following a lawsuit filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the state dropped the requirement in what amounted to another admission that it was violating the First Amendment.
Attorneys with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty are also asking the Court to stop a Colorado law that bans Catholic preschools from a state program because they require “families to support Catholic beliefs to enroll in the school,” according to the Washington Examiner.
“Colorado is now arguably the most anti-free speech state in the union, pushing an array of measures attacking those with opposing social and political views,” legal scholar Jonathan Turley wrote on his website following the counseling law ruling. “Citizens will continue to subsidize this effort to defend laws compelling or censoring speech,” he warned.
Others have also criticized Polis’s apparent war on free speech and religious liberty.
The state “is no stranger to attacks on religious freedom,” Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino wrote, commenting on the Catholic preschool case.
Even libertarians are starting to see through Polis’s facade. Reason editor Nick Gillespie once gushed over Polis, calling him “the most libertarian governor in America” in 2022. Just a few years later, he criticized the governor for signing gun control and liquor restrictions into law.
In some areas, Polis indeed has supported individual freedom. He has generally been supportive of school choice and is the only Democrat governor so far to support new choice scholarships signed into law by President Trump in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
However, a few reasonable actions do not come close to canceling out his shocking hostility toward Christians and anyone who disagrees with his far-left ideology. It seems that no matter how many times the courts rebuke Polis and Colorado Democrats, they only become more determined to render the First Amendment null and void in their state.
AMAC Newsline contributor Matt Lamb is an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.
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