Democrats Compared Parental Rights Groups to the KKK While Passing a Transgender Law. Now, Those Groups Are Suing.

While the Colorado Legislature passed a new transgender bill, sponsors compared parental rights groups to the Ku Klux Klan. Now, those groups are suing to block the legislation, mere days after Gov. Jared Polis signed it.

“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.

The lawsuit claims this violates the First Amendment by compelling Coloradans to speak to promote transgender issues, in violation of their free speech. It also claims that requiring staff at places of public accommodation to use a transgender person’s “chosen name” is unconstitutionally vague and subject to arbitrary enforcement, violating the Fourteenth Amendment.

The lawsuit also challenges the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act’s “unwelcome provision,” which bars employees at places of public accommodation from announcing that they will not serve certain people based on protected characteristics, claiming the provision also violates the same amendments. Since HB 25-1312 amended the overall anti-discrimination act, it carries implications for the “unwelcome provision,” as well.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, seeks a declaratory judgment that HB 25-1312 and the “unwelcome provision” violate the Constitution, and a preliminary and permanent injunction preventing Colorado from enforcing them, along with attorney’s fees and any other relief the court deems proper.

Mandating Transgender Orthodoxy

“Our members and the members of the other plaintiff organizations have fundamental free speech rights and seek to speak consistently with their belief that sex is fixed at birth,” Perry explained. “We don’t want to be forced to affirm that a biological man is a woman or vice versa, but HB 25-1312 requires exactly that.”

The lawsuit grounds these claims in Supreme Court precedent. It cites National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra (2018), in which the court ruled that requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to carry a pro-abortion message violated their rights to free speech. It also cites 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023), in which the court ruled that Colorado cannot use the anti-discrimination law to force a Christian designer to use her artistic work to celebrate same-sex weddings.

The groups are suing Colorado because they “believe that sex is immutable and fixed at birth, and they oppose the spread of controversial gender ideologies among Colorado’s youth,” according to the lawsuit. “They do not want to be forced to affirm—through the use of pronouns, names, or other language—that a biological man is actually a woman or vice versa. Yet that is precisely what HB 25-1312 requires.”

Comparing Parental Rights Groups to the KKK

“HB 25-1312’s sponsors confirmed that the law’s speech prohibitions are designed to push those with traditional views about sex and gender out of the public conversation,” the lawsuit notes. It cites The Daily Signal’s previous coverage of state Rep. Yara Zokaie, a Democrat sponsor of the bill, comparing parental rights groups to the Ku Klux Klan. When Zokaie faced criticism over the comparison, she doubled down, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Southern Poverty Law Center brands parental rights groups “anti-government extremist groups” and puts them on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. The pro-transgender SPLC has long branded as “anti-LGBTQ hate groups” conservative and Christian organizations that oppose its activism on social issues.

As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC has faced numerous scandals, including a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that led the group to fire its co-founder. Amid that scandal, a former employee called the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.”

Two of the plaintiffs, Defending Education and Do No Harm, appear on the “hate map.” The SPLC brands Defending Education an “anti-government extremist group.” It brands Do No Harm an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” in part because Do No Harm—a group of doctors—opposes experimental transgender medical interventions euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care.”

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