From the rugged ridgelines of the Rockies now echoes a different kind of thunder — not from the skies above, but from the marble halls of Colorado’s State Capitol, where lawmakers are ushering in a bill that feels less like legislation and more like dogma.

House Bill 25-1312, ostentatiously named the “Kelly Loving Act,” is heralded as a civil rights measure. But dig past the buzzwords and you’ll find something far more troubling: a secular creed imposed with such fervor it borders on religious zealotry — and as such, possibly violates the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause.

At the heart of the bill is a sweeping redefinition of “coercive control” in family law. If passed, courts would be mandated to treat “deadnaming” and “misgendering” as a form of psychological abuse in custody battles. To clarify: a parent referring to their child by their given name or biological pronouns — regardless of intent — could be labeled abusive by the state. The penalty? A reduction or removal of parental rights.

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Let’s call this what it is: compelled affirmation of a belief system. It doesn’t matter whether your conviction stems from religious faith, scientific reasoning, or parental instinct — HB25-1312 would strip you of your right to dissent.

And therein lies the constitutional rot. The First Amendment isn’t just about the freedom to speak; it’s also the freedom not to speak, and certainly the freedom not to be conscripted into someone else’s ideological crusade. What Colorado is flirting with is not mere legislation — it is state-enforced orthodoxy. A modern blasphemy code dressed in the garments of progressivism.

It doesn’t stop at the family. The bill imposes mandates on public schools, requiring them to honor any chosen name or gender identity regardless of age, legal name, or parental input. Gender-based distinctions in dress codes? Gone. If a school has a policy around names, it must apply to every student for any reason — including gender identity, personal taste, or even whim. It’s not education policy; it’s cultural reprogramming.

The supporters of this legislation do not behave like lawmakers engaged in pluralistic debate. They act like theocrats of a new secular religion — one where gender ideology is sacred scripture, and heretics (read: concerned parents) are to be shamed and silenced.

Nowhere was this more evident than during committee hearings, where parental rights advocates were effectively likened to the Ku Klux Klan. One Democratic representative, Yara Zokaie, even said consulting these groups would be like asking the KKK to weigh in on civil rights. This was not just tone-deaf; it was scorched-earth rhetoric designed to shut down legitimate public discourse.

This is not democracy. This is gaslighting on a legislative level. When parents — those most invested in the well-being of their children — are treated as enemies of progress for refusing to parrot ideologically loaded language, we are not in the realm of public policy anymore. We are in the realm of dogma, sanctified and enforced by the state.

And it gets worse. The bill also instructs Colorado courts to ignore any out-of-state orders that restrict gender-affirming care for minors. In other words, a parent from another state could lose custody for refusing such care, but Colorado would ignore that legal decision and effectively offer sanctuary to the child — without parental consent. That’s not just radical; it’s a direct affront to the principle of comity, where states honor each other’s laws and judgments to maintain legal coherence across the union.

So where does this end?

With every amendment, every mandate, HB25-1312 moves Colorado closer to establishing a state-backed ideology with the intensity — and intolerance — of a state religion. The Establishment Clause was written to prevent exactly this: a government choosing a belief system, mandating its observance and punishing its rejection.

The irony is almost biblical. In the name of liberation, the bill suppresses dissent. In the name of safety, it endangers free thought. In the name of affirmation, it denies parental love the right to wrestle with complexity.

Colorado must decide: Is it still a state where multiple world views can coexist? Or, is it becoming a place where only one ideology is permitted — and all others are anathematized by law?

If the answer is the latter, then yes — Colorado has gone mad.

Michael A. Hancock, who serves on the Aurora Consent Decree Monitor’s Community Advisory Council, a retired high-tech executive, visionary, musician and composer who explores diverse interests — from religion and arts to politics and philosophy — offering thoughtful insights on the intersections of culture, innovation and society.