Davis: Democrat lawmakers target faith as discriminatory under HB25-1312

By / / Commentary, Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice, State

By Chase Davis | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Colorado is rapidly becoming one of the nation’s most “progressive” states.

And by “progressive,” I mean “radically opposed to God, family, life, marriage, and basic human biology and aggressively hostile to anyone who holds historic conservative and Christian beliefs on these issues.”

Welcome to the modern Left—this ain’t your grandaddy’s Democrat Party.

As a Southern Baptist pastor living and ministering in Boulder, Colorado, I’m on the front lines of the fight to maintain both a gospel and a “creation order” witness in a state that is increasingly hostile to the spiritual message of salvation in Jesus Christ and the natural law.

And what Colorado Democrats are trying to do right now, if successful, would destroy the First Amendment freedoms of all Coloradans who believe in the biological reality of binary sex and subject all Christians who uphold the truth of Genesis 1:27, “male and female, He created them,” to state-sanctioned persecution.

On Monday, it was announced that Colorado House Bill 25-1312, the “Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals,” would get a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee. The full text of the proposed bill, which was put forward by Democrats, can be found here.

In response, Republican State House Representative Jarvis Caldwell immediately began sounding the alarm, noting that “This bill just got introduced late Friday evening & we just found out today it’s scheduled for Judiciary Committee TOMORROW. And it’s RADICAL. No time to analyze it. No time to coordinate testimony. No time to talk with stakeholders or constituents.”

Rep. Caldwell is not exaggerating. It is one of the most radical bills put forward in a state legislature yet, going further than almost any other state in terms of “codifying” pro-transgender speech codes.

If enacted, this bill would criminalize “deadnaming” and “misgendering” for any business. It would criminalize dress codes conforming to gender standards for schools. It threatens to strip parents of their parental rights who do not go along with the delusion that boys can become girls. It also broadly criminalizes any “coercion” by parents who, whether from their religious beliefs or just common sense, refuse to allow their confused children to “transition.” It would also empower the state to take children away from parents who refer to their kids by their given name and biological sex.

As mentioned above, the Democrats tried to rush the bill through the committee process, providing only a very brief advance notice of the hearing. However, despite the short notice, some Coloradans in the community, including pastors and other Christian, pro-child, and free speech organizations, worked to quickly gather and submit opposing testimony both in person and in written form.

Some Christian organizations, such as Christian Home Educators of Colorado, sent representatives to give verbal testimony against the bill. Other Colorado-based Christian organizations such as Focus on the Family, The Navigators, Compassion International, Young Life, and the Association for Christian Schools International have not yet spoken against this bill. It is unclear if they will. 

While the bill has indeed been “sprung” on Christians in Colorado with no real advance notice, the truth is also that many pastors seem unprepared for this battle. Some of it can be blamed on the appropriate focus of pastoral ministry (within the church). But it’s also the case that many pastors in Colorado, the products of “winsome third way” ministerial approaches promoted by Tim Keller, Acts 29, and TGC, have been taught to believe that they should keep their faith out of the public square.

Thankfully, some pastors in the state are fighting back.

One local Baptist pastor, Jonathan Helvoigt, was able to actually appear in person to testify against the bill, which he rightly claims is a “manifesto for taking children from conservative parents and obliterating Christian institutions.”

While I was not able to testify against the bill in person, I did submit written testimony as the pastor of The Well Church.

My testimony is below.

My Written Testimony Against HB 25-1312

“HB25-1312 is an unjust and immoral bill that stands in direct opposition to God’s created order, parental rights, and fundamental freedoms. As a pastor, I reject this bill in the strongest possible terms, not only because it is an attack on free speech and parental authority, but because it is an assault on truth itself.

Scripture is clear: “Male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). This is not an arbitrary distinction, nor is it a social construct—it is a divine reality woven into the fabric of creation. HB25-1312 seeks to criminalize the recognition of this truth by labeling “deadnaming” and “misgendering” as coercive control and discrimination. In doing so, the bill demands that citizens affirm a lie rather than speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

The state has no authority to compel speech that denies reality. Christians cannot, in good conscience, be forced to speak falsehoods about what God has made plain. To require people to use preferred pronouns or chosen names that contradict their biological sex is to mandate participation in deception.

The Bible commands parents to train up their children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). This bill, however, seeks to strip parents of their God-given authority by prioritizing state intervention over familial responsibility. It redefines “coercive control” to include parents who refuse to affirm their child’s gender confusion—essentially criminalizing Christian parenting.

It is not abusive to guide children according to biblical truth. On the contrary, it is abusive for the state to encourage gender confusion and to punish parents who refuse to comply.

By prohibiting gendered dress codes, this bill does more than enforce so-called inclusivity—it actively erases the biological and biblical distinctions between male and female. God’s design for men and women is not arbitrary but purposeful. The attempt to suppress gendered expressions in schools is an attack on the created order and an effort to indoctrinate children into an anti-Christian ideology.

This law would force Christian educators and students to participate in an ideology that rejects biblical truth. Schools should be places of learning, not laboratories for social engineering. Christian parents should resist the normalization of gender confusion in schools and advocate for curricula and policies that align with God’s word.

HB25-1312 codifies hostility toward Christian beliefs by treating basic biblical convictions as discrimination. To recognize that men and women are distinct, to refuse to affirm gender confusion, and to speak truthfully about a person’s sex are not acts of hatred but of faithfulness to God.

HB25-1312 is an affront to truth, to family, and to religious liberty. It seeks to replace God’s authority with state-mandated falsehoods. It criminalizes Christian convictions and makes it illegal to live and speak according to biblical truth.”

What’s Next?

After over 10 hours of contentious testimony, the bill advanced out of committee on a party line vote of 7-4, with every Democrat supporting it and every Republican opposing it. As Chaya Raichik, who runs the well-known account “Libs of TikTok,” put it, “Democrats are the party of delusion and child grooming.”

This disastrous and wicked legislation will now advance to the full Colorado House of Representatives for a vote. While the Democratic supermajority was thwarted in 2024, the Democrats still hold a majority in both the House and Senate in Colorado. It is unclear if Governor Jared Polis (D) will follow Gavin Newsom in rejecting some of this radical gender ideology.

Without a doubt, if this bill passes into law in Colorado, it will be challenged in court.

The fact that a bill like HB25-1312 is under consideration in any state in America, even a “blue state,” is proof of the rotten fruit being born out of our “civil rights religion” co-opted by the sexual revolutionaries. Christians must stand opposed to this at every level and with every platform God has given.

Yes, we do so to protect our First Amendment freedoms to preach the full counsel of God’s Word. We do so to defend our freedom of speech to tell the truth about other people’s biological sex. And we do so to protect our mental autonomy and integrity and resist being coerced into using “transgender speech codes” we disagree with.

But most importantly, Christians and pastors must oppose this bill for the good of the children in Colorado, who are at a rapidly increasing risk of being devoured, mentally, physically, and spiritually, by the demonic transgender agenda.

Because if this bill passes, churches will be closed, pastors will be arrested, and children will be stolen from their loving parents and fed into the state-run transgender machine, only to be spit out on the other side, physically mutilated and irreversibly damaged for life.

While pastors are not politicians, they cannot ignore these battles and leave their sheep defenseless. Pastors in blue states, where the Democrats have the majority, are in for a fight. If you didn’t know that already, let this be a wake-up call.

While the broader political trends in our country are tracking to the Right, in what some have called a “vibe shift,” the entrenched Leftists in blue states are clearly unfettered in advancing their radical anti-God and anti-human agenda.

We cannot sit on our heels, hoping that the battle will pass us by. The battle is here, and it is time to get in the fight. If we don’t stop it in places like Colorado, it will come to our brothers and sisters in other states who, for the time being, are spared from such political fights.

This is our duty. This is my duty as a father, as a Christian, and as a pastor in Colorado. I pray that God gives me strength, wisdom, and success in the fight. And I would ask that my fellow Southern Baptist pastors across the country pray for us in these trying times as well.

Chase Davis is the Lead Pastor of Ministry of The Well Church in Boulder, CO. A two-time graduate of Denver Seminary (M.Div., Th.M.), Chase is also a Ph.D. candidate at the Free University Amsterdam studying historical theology. He is the author of Trinitarian Formation: A Theology of Discipleship in Light of the Father, Son, and Spirit and hosts the Full Proof Theology podcast.

To enjoy more of Davis’ content, CLICK HERE to connect with his work at the Center for Baptist Leadership.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.