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Colorado Family Action: The parents are all right — no therapist needed

By 05/01/2017 | updated 8 years ago

Just in case it wasn’t clear how adamantly Colorado’s social conservatives oppose a pending legislative proposal lowering the age of consent for child therapy from 15 to 12, the advocacy group Colorado Family Action sent out an email over the weekend urging lawmakers to vote no. You could even make that, heck no:

Studies show that children thrive when their parents are involved in all aspects of their lives.  Encouraging, and possibly even advertising to children, that they should exclude their parents during times of depression and emotional distress is unconscionable.

Our government has no business interfering in the parent child relationship. We should work to increase opportunities to strengthen this bond, not tear it down!

The legislation in question is House Bill 1320.

ColoradoPolitics.com’s Joey Bunch reported on the bill last week when it passed out of the House, where Democrats hold the majority. Democrats, including sponsoring freshman Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, D-Commerce City, rose to the mic during floor debate to attest to the bill’s need in heading off teen suicide among other concerns. Minority Republicans vociferously denounced the proposal as an intrusion on the parent-child bond. Typical, as Bunch reported, was this argument against the bill:

Rep. Kim Ransom, R-Littleton, said dentists can’t clean children’s teeth without parental consent.

“Yet we’re going to let these children go speak to a mental health professional about their future, about everything, without the parents even knowing,” she questioned.

And if that’s the sentiment among House Republicans, it’s a safe bet Senate Republicans won’t be any more kindly disposed. Or, as Bunch made clear at the time, the bill “has dang-near unsurmountable odds in the Senate.”

That’s thee chamber where, of course, Republicans rule — and are a lot  more receptive to the likes of Colorado Family Action.

For its part, the group cuts right to the chase in its email and certainly knows its audience: It encourages its mailing list to contact the members of the Senate’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee — aka the kill committee — where the legislation heads next.

Our guess is the GOP majority will oblige. That’s so with or without the input of Colorado Family Action, but the outreach effort sure puts an underline on no-way-no-how.

Colorado Family Action’s executive director is Debbie Chaves, and its board includes former U.S. Attorney Mike Norton and hardline conservative Colorado Springs former state Sen. Dave Schultheis.

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Dan Njegomir

Reporter

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OK, so even we were surprised at how quickly Colorado GOP lawmakers made good ...

… on our prediction that they would dispatch a legislative proposal lowering the age of consent for child therapy from 15 to 12. It seems as if we made the prediction only one blog post ago. Hey, wait a minute; that’s exactly how long it has been. We learned of the development Monday afternoon via press release from the very organization […]
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