The most notable moment from last week’s 9News debate between Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo and state Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Ft. Lupton) was on a topic few observers expected to be discussed at all: child abuse. Moderator Kyle Clark asked Evans about his membership in Heritage Defense, a legal organization that defends Christian homeschoolers against allegations of child abuse.
Evans listed his status as a Heritage Defense member and contributor on a voter guide he filled out during his primary race earlier this year. And while it went unnoticed until the debate, his affiliation with a conservative biblical group that serves Christian homeschoolers can’t be considered all that surprising given his campaign endorsers and his academic background.
Michael Farris is one of Evans’s earliest endorsers. In addition to founding Patrick Henry College, which Evans attended, specifically for homeschooled Christians, he’s also a Christian Nationalist and the founder of ParentalRights.org, which opposed the U.S. signing on to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child as preventing parents from being allowed “to administer reasonable spankings to their children.” The subject is so important to Farris that in 2014 he appeared on The Today Show to argue for parents’ right to hit their children.
So what is Heritage Defense, the organization to which, as a member, Evans is apparently paying $19 every month?
The organization describes itself thusly: “Heritage Defense seeks to formulate a common strategy for the preservation of family rights, the defense of the family against illegitimate invasions.” The group’s Frequently Asked Questions page includes just one specific policy position on a parental right: corporal punishment.
“Heritage Defense believes that parents have a right and a duty to exercise reasonable, loving, appropriate corporal punishment relating to the discipline and instruction of their children when Scripture indicates such discipline is proper.” – Heritage Defense FAQ page.
The group’s marketing videos promote it as essentially an insurance policy for Christian homeschoolers, for whom a visit from Child Protective Services is all but inevitable, and who will be overwhelmed by investigative and legal resources of state and local authorities.
“For less than the average cost of one hour of another attorney’s time, you can get an entire year of access to our experienced, Christian attorneys. So if you want peace of mind about your parental rights, join at heritagedefense.org…Don’t wait until you have a social worker at your door. Become a member now, before it’s too late.” – Heritage Defense promo video.
Another video names five reasons Christian homeschoolers need Heritage Defense’s protection from Social Services investigations. The top two are “medical referrals” and “spanking.”
The service is akin to that offered by pro-gun groups like U.S. Law Shield, which charges members a monthly fee to provide legal defense should they shoot someone or otherwise fire their weapons in public. Members who are concerned about being accused of specific crimes can pre-pay for legal help should they be accused of breaking certain laws.
During last week’s debate, moderator Clark, who’s a 9News anchor, noted Evans’ status as a Heritage Defense member and then added that Evans voted against a simple ban on corporal punishment in schools.
“You’re a member of a Christian group called Heritage Defense, which defends parents accused of beating their children or as the group describes corporal punishment, ‘following biblical protocol in the training and discipline of their children,’” said Clark. “As a state legislator last year, you voted against a ban on corporal punishment in Colorado’s public schools. A brief answer, please — when do you believe that it is acceptable to hit a child at home and at school?”
Evans responded by citing from memory the state statute that gives parents an exception to the law banning the use of physical force against another person, but when pressed on when corporal punishment should be used at schools, he pivoted to his experience as a school resource officer before Clark cut him off for not answering the question directly.
Among those noting the exchange was Rebecca Pringle, president of the National Education Association, who tweeted, “Corporal punishment has no place in public education. Period.”
The following morning, during his appearance on the conservative talk radio station KNUS’ “Jeff & Bill” morning show, Evans attacked Colorado social workers.
“Here in Colorado, Social Services can effectively make whomever they want guilty of child abuse,” said Evans. “It only takes two people to do it — a social worker and their supervisor. They get to decide all of the evidence and whoever is accused of child abuse is not entitled to literally anything — not entitled to a lawyer, a hearing. This doesn’t have to go in front of a judge, there doesn’t have to be criminal charges; a cop doesn’t have to be involved. It’s literally two individuals a social worker and their supervisor. They can say, ‘Hey based on the two of us talking this over, we think that somebody committed child abuse, therefore you are now a known child abuser. We’re going to put you into the child abuse database.”
But Evans extended explanation on the radio last week appearance wasn’t the first time he’s expressed his disdain for Colorado’s social workers. At a June 22 campaign event covered by the Colorado Times Recorder, when he was still in a primary race with Janak Joshi, Evans gave the same speech he shared with KNUS hosts Jeff and Bill to a room of supporters in La Salle. He raised the subject in part to explain mailers attacking him over his “C” rating from the Colorado Union of Taxpayers, a conservative group that scores legislators on their thriftiness with public money. A bill he introduced to add more due process to the child welfare system died because of its multi-million dollar cost of implementation. Evans blamed Democrats for the high price tag, omitting the fact that nonpartisan legislative analysts determine the size of a bill’s fiscal note, which in this case would have required hiring fourteen new employees.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Colorado Dept. of Human Services offered this information flowchart as an illustration of how its Division of Child Welfare operates and the fact that the vast majority of investigations do not lead to the removal of children from their parents.
Besides Gabe Evans, Heritage Defense has other prominent supporters, including anti-LGBT pastor Kevin Swanson, who says he joined in order to “wage war.”
“My family has joined Heritage Defense to wage war to defend the family and future generations. Join us!” — Kevin Swanson, Director of Generations with Vision and Host of Generations Radio
Swanson is best known as the far-right pastor who says LGBT people should be executed.
While Heritage Defense’s legal work focuses on “parental rights,” its mission statement shows an interest in the broad expansion of Christian influence and power, framing the openly Christian Nationalist terms like dominion, “Soldiers of the Cross” and “make disciples of all nations.”
“The Christian home is the cradle of the Gospel, the incubator of leadership for the church and Christian civilization, the command center for crafting dominion mandate strategies, the boot camp in which Soldiers of the Cross are made ready, and the seminary in which Believers are equipped to make disciples of all nations. It is small wonder that the enemies of God despise the Christian home; nor is it surprising that Satan wages his most determined wars to destroy marriage, steal the hearts and minds of children, and reduce the Christian family to poverty and ruin. If the enemy succeeds, he destroys not just the family, but the church and the nation as well. -from the Heritage Defense mission statement
Bradley Pierce, a founder of Heritage Defense, is a Texas attorney who has eleven children, all homeschooled. He’s best known for his other organization, Abolish Abortion Texas, which advocates not only for outlawing abortion but for prosecuting anyone who has one with murder. He also openly advocates for Christian Nationalism, telling a group of anti-choice supporters last year, “If we’re not bringing our civil government under the subjection of Christ, then we are letting it be turned over to the subjection of Satan.”
Heritage Defense’s other founder, Don Hart, says simply, “The state does not have the authority to tell the family that obeying the Word of God is a criminal act.”
