A few years ago, Ed Morrissey and I were at a barbecue with a fairly prominent lawyer and commentator. The subject of "woke" ideology came up. It was heavily in the time, with the Minnesota state legislature having just passed a law requiring the state to ignore out of state custody orders if the non-custodial parent had brought the child to Minnesota for "gender affirming care". We noted what an intensely, groaningly anti-parent bill this was.
The lawyer friend predicted the madness would eventually be settled, at a society-wide level, in court.
In Colorado - which has been vying with Minnesota to be the state that "catches up" with California in terms of "woke" madness - we may be on the brink of taking the next step down that legal path. The Colorado Legislature passed a bill, HB25-1312, signed into law by Governor Polis, which would radically impact parents rights, labeling things like "deadnaming" and "misgendering" as "coercive control", and providing legal sanctions including removing children from families:
“A court shall consider reports of coercive control when determining the allocation of parental responsibilities in accordance with the best interests of the child,” the summary adds.
These provisions would effectively require parents to endorse gender ideology in order to maintain custody of their own children in a custody dispute between parents. Gender ideology teaches that a person’s internal sense of gender overrides his or her biological sex.
The actual law is bad enough.
The gaslighting and defamation of the parents and family groups pushing back - Defending Education, the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, and Protect Kids Colorado - was worse. A Democrat state representative dropped the "K" bomb on them:
🚨BREAKING
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 5, 2025
Colorado state Rep. Yara Zokaie doubles down on comparing parental rights groups to the KKK, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Zokaie did so while defending a bill that would define "misgendering" and "deadnaming" as "coercive control" and would require courts… pic.twitter.com/4p3EfWSayL
You read that right: Rep. Zokaie compared advocating for one's children to burning crosses in black peoples' front yards.
Of course, the SPLC's days as a legitimate arbiter of hatred ended about the time shag carpeting went out of style; if you're in a conservative group, no matter how innocuous, that the SPLC hasn't labeled a "hate group", you might fairly wonder if you exist at all?
Nonetheless, the parents groups have had enough; they've lawyered up and are going to court:
“The State of Colorado cannot stifle viewpoints it doesn’t like simply because it finds those views offensive or disagreeable,” Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow at the parental rights group Defending Education, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday.
The parental rights groups Defending Education, the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, and Protect Kids Colorado teamed up with the medical watchdog group Do No Harm and a medical doctor, Dr. Travis Morrell, to file the lawsuit Monday, challenging HB 25-1312, which Polis, a Democrat, signed Friday. The law amends the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of “gender expression,” specifically stating that refusing to use a person’s “chosen name” will constitute discrimination.
Given the results of other social-justice litigation from Colorado - they created the most famous baker in America that doesn't have a reality show, remember? - it's entirely likely this case spends some time touring courts all the way up the legal system.
