Fresh from the recent victory stopping the LGBT movement’s “anti-therapy” bill in the Colorado Legislature, pro-family people are up against an equally frightening bill that has been filed and just passed its first hurdle toward becoming law. It’s the latest among similar laws that are being quietly passed across the country.

The LGBT lobby is quietly but forcefully pushing for laws to allow children as young as 10 years old to “decide” they need psychiatric therapy – without their parents’ knowledge or consent. LGBT-allied “therapists” could push vulnerable children to affirm and accept homosexual and transgender “identity” and behaviors as “normal.”

This has terrifying implications for parents and families. Children are emotionally defenseless and can easily be persuaded by adults that they need this “help” from unknown, agenda-driven mental health professionals.

It’s not clear who pays for these services, but it’s assumed that the state funds them. It’s also not clear that parents would be allowed access to the resulting medical records.

To accommodate these laws, many school-based clinics now offer “behavioral health” services. The LGBT movement and Planned Parenthood have long been placing “youth clinics” inside schools to access children away from parental oversight. This past week, a Colorado MassResistance mother called one of the clinics and was told they can arrange a psychiatrist to meet with a child on site at the school.

This scheme dovetails with the other, more public LGBT campaign in state legislatures across America to ban counseling and therapy for children who have unwanted homosexual or transgender feelings – but would allow therapy to affirm homosexuality or transgenderism. Sadly, such a ban would be particularly devastating to children who have been sexually molested.

To persuade legislators that these laws are necessary, the proponents focus on  “suicide prevention.” They make emotional claims that many young children are suicidal, cannot talk to their parents about it, and unless professional intervention happens the children will kill or horribly injure themselves.

“Suicide prevention” has been a lobbying tactic used by the LGBT movement for decades to push for a wide range of programs and funding. This broad claim has little scientific basis and usually depends on blatantly unscientific school surveys such as the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey. But sadly, most legislators are not informed enough to see through that. So too often, it works.

(Of course, it is true that psychological problems are far more prevalent among “LGBT-identifying” children. That’s because these behaviors are usually a symptom of earlier trauma, molestation, or other issues. So while these children may need psychological counseling, it must be done with non-activist professionals and parental oversight.)

In 2010 California passed the Mental Health Services for At-Risk Youth Act (SB 543), signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, which lowered the age of consent to 12. The law was heavily lobbied by Equality California and other LGBT groups.

Since then, several states across the US have passed laws lowering the age of consent for outpatient (and inpatient) psychotherapy to various age levels, with various degrees of independence for children and notification of parents in these decisions.

On April 5, 2017, Bill HB17-1320 was filed in the Colorado Legislature. It would lower the age of consent for outpatient psychotherapy to 10. (Read the text for the original bill here.) Soon after it was filed, the proponents got nervous and offered an amendment to change the age of consent to 12. But the bill is quite clear about its intent. It immediately went to the Democrat-controlled House Public Health Care & Human Services Committee.

On April 18, the Committee held a public hearing for the bill, followed by a vote of the committee members. It was not an overwhelming turnout like other LGBT-related hearings. About 35 people showed up. All but 5 who testified were supporters of the bill.

Parents from Colorado MassResistance were there to testify.

Interestingly, the LGBT lobby seems to be hiding in the background on this. They sent in individual activists and allies to testify, but they did not give an LGBT affiliation. However, the LGBT movement’s fingerprints were there. It was almost all emotional, often tearful arguments about how they and/or their loved ones personally suffered and went through suicide issues as children because legislation did not exist to help them.

Most of the arguments were non-intellectual, irrational, and emotional. They did not focus on professional medical or legal issues. Much of their testimony was rambling, and didn’t even pertain to the bill. There were a lot of threats of children being suicidal, or at least cutting themselves badly, if they had to rely on their parents to decide for them. One of the sponsors of the bill even testified, and began crying when telling her story about her young son who she said wanted to commit suicide. But it had nothing to do with the intent of the bill. It seemed like they were simply throwing anything they could think of at the legislators to see what would stick.

The pro-family people included MassResistance Colorado and Colorado Family Action (CFA), including two attorneys that CFA brought. The MassResistance Colorado parents testified strongly, point by point against the bill, and how its true intent would horribly subvert parents and give an unknown therapist free latitude to diagnose and “treat” their children with whatever approach they chose, without knowing vital medical history or other information from parents.

The MassResistance Colorado parents also submitted a letter by Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians, against Bill HB 17-1320. Dr. Cretella strongly advised the legislators that adolescents are not capable of making these kinds of judgments about their mental health and psychological therapy.

The CFA attorneys cited constitutional problems with subverting parental rights, and noted that the door would be opened for lawsuits based on past Supreme Court decisions. As Dr. Cretella also observed, young children, especially those in some emotional distress, have absolutely no competence to consent to psychological treatment.

But more importantly, the attorneys noted that statistically these laws have had virtually no positive effect. In California the child suicide rate has actually increased since their law was passed.

Somewhat shockingly, when one of the parents cited the ideological agenda and special interests behind this bill which clearly seem to override interests and needs of the parents and children, the Committee Chairman said that “impugning the motives” of people would not be allowed in testimony!

When the testimony ended, the Committee passed a few minor amendments, including one that would change the age of consent from 10 to 12. The main sponsor explained that she had meet with “stakeholders” (i.e., activists supporting the bill) and apparently decided that 10 years old was too hard to sell right now. Then the Committee passed the bill 7-6, along party lines.

One of the Democrat committee members, Dan Pabon, didn’t even bother to be there for the testimony; he only came in for the vote, and voted “yes”.

Interestingly, one of the Republican committee members, Lois Landgraf, was a sponsor of the bill. But after hearing the testimony, she changed her mind and voted against it. She told legislators:

“If a suicidal child can’t go to parents, there has to be a solution, and I don’t know what it is, but this isn’t it. This bill was too intrusive into the parent-child relationship, so I removed my sponsorship.”

Another Republican committee member noted that it’s being promoted as a “suicide prevention” bill, but that it’s much far more expansive and broad than that. “It’s really a mental health bill that excludes parents,” he told his fellow legislators.

The bill now goes to the full House, which could happen any day now.

We believe that this bill can be stopped in the Senate, if it gets there. The problem in other states, we believe, has been not enough, if any, pro-family firepower. But even in Colorado it will take some serious work. The CFA people are already scheduling meetings with Senators, and MassResistance Colorado is also prepared to help.

It’s terrifying that most citizens have no idea these laws are being passed in America to give vulnerable children into the hands of “mental health” activists, quacks, or worse.