Family · Statewide · CO · August 21, 2026
Colorado-Funded Ads Told Kids 12+ They Can Get Therapy Without Parents
A report from the medical advocacy group Do No Harm, based on 279 files obtained through Colorado's open-records law, details how the state-funded "I Matter" counseling program advertised directly to minors that they could enroll without parental consent or knowledge. Created by HB21-1258 in 2021 and made permanent through 2034 by SB24-001, I Matter offers up to six free telehealth counseling sessions to anyone 18 or under, built on a 2019 law (HB19-1120) that lowered Colorado's consent age for psychotherapy from 15 to 12. Do No Harm reports nearly $5 million was spent marketing the program to youth, including a $25,000 influencer campaign using talking points stating "no parent/guardian consent is required for youth 12+." One influencer, a public high-school teacher, reportedly hung program posters in her classroom. The report notes I Matter does not itself prescribe medical gender transition, though it flags that counseling could lead to referrals; it documents no confirmed case of this occurring. Colorado law still requires parental consent before any medical transition procedure.
Source: Rocky Mountain Voice
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Why Bible-Believing Christians Should Care
Scripture places God-given authority and responsibility for a child's care in the hands of parents, not the state. A government program engineered so a 12-year-old can seek mental-health treatment — and be referred onward — without a parent's knowledge inverts that order, treating the family as an obstacle to route around rather than an authority to respect. That the state paid marketing firms to recruit Gen Z influencers to sell this confidentiality directly to children, including through a public-school classroom, should alarm parents who assume schools and state programs work alongside them. This is not a story about counseling itself being wrong; it is about the state deliberately designing a system that bypasses parental authority on some of the most sensitive decisions a family can face.
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. — Exodus 20:12
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From the book
Legitimate expertise is technical competence exercised under moral authority, like a mathematics teacher explaining algebra. False expertise is ideology wearing the costume of science in order to usurp moral authority, like a counselor telling a child that his parents are unsafe because they hold biblical views on gender.
— Chapter 18, “The Expert Against the Parent”
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