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Tag: Parental Rights

Colorado parents packed the hearing room. Democrats didn’t ask a single question.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado parents packed the hearing room. Democrats didn’t ask a single question.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Twenty Coloradans showed up. Zero came to oppose. The resolution died anyway. By the time the House State, Civic, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee finished Monday night, HCR 26-1004 was postponed indefinitely after a vote of 8 to 3.  Parents waited hours for their three minutes at the microphone. When it was over, the majority moved on to the next bill. The resolution was constitutionally modest.  It proposed inserting explicit language into the Colorado Constitution recognizing parents' right to direct the upbringing, education and care of their children. Sponsors argued throughout the hearing that the amendment would leave existing child abuse and neglect protections intact — the state would s...
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Supreme Court To Weigh Religious Freedom In Colorado Preschool Funding Case
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CNN, Approved, State

Supreme Court To Weigh Religious Freedom In Colorado Preschool Funding Case

By John Fritze | CNN The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review a Colorado law that requires preschools receiving taxpayer money to enroll children of same-sex couples — setting up an important First Amendment showdown at the high court that pits religious rights against LGBTQ families. At the same time, the court declined to hear another high-profile case involving a Massachusetts couple who said their school began treating their middle school child as genderqueer against their wishes. After years of allowing religious schools in some settings to receive state funding alongside secular schools, the 6-3 conservative court will now decide what to do when school leaders assert that anti-discrimination laws intended to protect gay and transgender people conflict with their...
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What records show about Poudre School District’s role in student ICE walkouts
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

What records show about Poudre School District’s role in student ICE walkouts

By RMV Staff Nearly half of Lesher Middle School’s 766 students walked out of class on Feb. 2 to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of a wave of student demonstrations that Poudre School District says it neither encouraged nor discouraged. PSD is among the 10 largest school systems in Colorado. Emails and internal records reviewed by RMV suggest the situation may not have been as hands-off as described. What happened during the walkouts Over the following week, other district schools followed Lesher Middle School’s (LMS) lead, as nearly 900 6th–8th graders from over half of the district’s neighborhood middle schools and approximately 1,000 high school students walked out of class to protest ICE.  Students left school property, marched along Fort Colli...
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After Supreme Court ruling Colorado advances controversial counseling and parental rights bills
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

After Supreme Court ruling Colorado advances controversial counseling and parental rights bills

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado Colorado may go down in history as the most ideologically extreme state in the nation. Between throwing President Trump off the ballot in 2024, persecuting Christian bakers and graphic designers, and banning free speech in religious counseling for minors dealing with sexual identity issues, Colorado is consistently striking out. The decisions made by our legal institutions are continually being overturned by the United States Supreme Court on basic constitutional arguments. Let’s take the state’s radical positions on gender theory. Just two weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 to reverse the Tenth Circuit decision on Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy for minors. The Court held that the Colorado...
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After a father’s warning, lawmakers block porn age-check measure
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

After a father’s warning, lawmakers block porn age-check measure

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice A Mesa County father didn’t show up to talk policy. He showed up to talk about kids. “My heart breaks for this generation and the technology that they face today,” Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis told lawmakers, describing a world where explicit material is “one click away” and often discovered long before children understand what they’re seeing. He talked about foster children, smartphones, and the quiet moments when exposure happens before parents even know it. “Right now, a 10-year-old boy is quietly absorbing scenes that teach him that women are objects,” Davis said. “Right now, a 12-year-old girl is comparing her natural developing body to the… performer she sees.” No one in the hearing questioned the problem. Kids are runn...
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Colorado bills spark concern over parental rights and religious freedom
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado bills spark concern over parental rights and religious freedom

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado Colorado is becoming much more antagonistic towards families and people of faith. Our leadership appears to place more importance on ideology, secrecy, and crime when introducing and debating bills. The last few weeks have been an example of that mindset. The legislative session crossed the halfway mark in mid-March and is racing towards the finish line of May 13. SB26-018, Legal Protections for the Dignity of Minors, passed out of committee on March 25 and is headed for second and third reading in the State House this week. The most problematic section of the bill was stripped out in the Senate, but the secrecy provision for minors who request a name change for reasons including conforming to their new ...
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The record that removed a child: Allegations, filings and fallout
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

The record that removed a child: Allegations, filings and fallout

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice In Part 1, Fitzke describes how things unraveled at home and led into court. From there, the case played out through filings, testimony and what was said in court. Court filings show the case against Heather Fitzke relied on letters, testimony and screenshots. In one letter, a Basalt parent described the teen as fearful of returning home and said Fitzke had made life harder by withholding identification, taking money and posting about the teen online. Another letter included allegations that Fitzke yelled, threw items in the teen’s room, restricted access to medication and expressed beliefs about gender identity that concerned other parents. Screenshots submitted to the court show a series of text messages attributed to Fitzke. ...
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How a Garfield County dispute turned into a court-ordered separation
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

How a Garfield County dispute turned into a court-ordered separation

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Heather Fitzke’s story offers a look at how quickly a family dispute can move from home into the courtroom—and how outside involvement, public statements and court filings can reshape parental authority in ways many families may not expect. That side of the case is laid out in Part 2. Heather Fitzke says what happened to her family didn’t start in a courtroom. But that’s where it changed everything. She expected to defend herself, and she also ended up arguing with a judge about pronouns.  That moment came during a seven-hour hearing on Sept. 10 that would change the course of her family. Fitzke said that hearing came after she had already lost custody of her child through a separate guardianship decision. On Sept. 10, the judge ru...
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Colorado’s Ideological Regime Doubles Down
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FAIR Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s Ideological Regime Doubles Down

By Laureen Boll | Commentary, FAIR Colorado HB26-1322 is a weaponized end-run around the Constitution The Supreme Court’s October 2025 oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar exposed Colorado’s conversion-therapy ban for what it is: raw viewpoint discrimination dressed up as “child protection.” Conservative justices grilled the state on why a licensed counselor could affirm a minor’s gender identity or homosexuality but face professional ruin for exploring the opposite — neutral talk therapy aligned with a family’s faith or biology. The writing is on the wall, as the majority seems ready to apply strict scrutiny and likely strike down the ban as unconstitutional professional speech regulation. Colorado’s Democrat-majority legislature refuses to accept the likely verdict of ...
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Governed by ideology: Colorado’s silent revolution against top-down overreach
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Governed by ideology: Colorado’s silent revolution against top-down overreach

By Laureen Boll | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Since late December 2025, we've all been witness to the Iranian people rising in extraordinary defiance against an oppressive regime. Sparked initially by economic collapse but quickly evolving into broad demands for freedom and an end to clerical rule, these nationwide protests have seen millions take to the streets in what many describe as the most intense challenge to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. The regime's response has been savage: security forces unleashed massacres, particularly in early January 2026, with credible estimates from human rights groups putting the death toll in the tens of thousands. Iranians have made the ultimate sacrifice in this fight against a religious ideology that no longer aligns with...
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