A Colorado State Representative compared parental rights groups to the KKK for opposing a horrific law that criminalizes parents who disagree with misgendering and deadnaming. Rep. Yara Zokaie was defending that terrible, radical bill.
If parent groups try to become involved and disagree, she calls them hate groups.
She cited the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to back up her illogical argument. The SPLC is an anti-conservative, anti-Christian hate group. SPLC included Moms4Liberty, DefendingEd, RightsParents, and many more on its hate map, which plots conservative groups alongside chapters of the Ku Klux Klan.
That’s her reason for excluding parent groups from the bill discussion.
“Calling parental advocacy groups ‘hate groups’ is just their excuse to marginalize and ignore them while maintaining a pretense of moral superiority,” one Republican told the Daily Signal reporter.
BREAKING
Colorado state Rep. Yara Zokaie doubles down on comparing parental rights groups to the KKK, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Zokaie did so while defending a bill that would define “misgendering” and “deadnaming” as “coercive control” and would require courts… pic.twitter.com/4p3EfWSayL
— Tyler O’Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 5, 2025
Two House Republicans slammed Zokaie’s remarks.
“Calling parental advocacy groups ‘hate groups’ is just their excuse to marginalize and ignore them while maintaining a pretense of moral superiority,” @COrepKdeGraaf told me.@RepCaldwell said the comparison uses “inflammatory…
— Tyler O’Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 5, 2025
The SPLC isn’t exactly the most reliable source.
Its list of scandals is quite long. Here’s a sampling (for more, check out my first book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center”):
1⃣SPLC apologized after branding Ben Carson an “extremist” for… pic.twitter.com/Is1tGnB72H
— Tyler O’Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 5, 2025
So why silence dissenters?
Oh, probably because the bill is awful.
Seriously, it’s heinously bad.@heritagekristen put it well when she told me HB 1312 “seeks to impose radical gender ideology on Colorado families by penalizing parents for ‘misgendering’ or ‘deadnaming’… pic.twitter.com/TKC7gwpy9z
— Tyler O’Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 5, 2025
Here’s when SPLC added parental rights groups to the “hate map.” https://t.co/t6tNH36wNr
— Tyler O’Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 5, 2025
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