Supreme Court Strikes Down Colorado Ban on ‘Conversion Therapy’ With 8-1 Ruling

The Supreme Court says Colorado’s ban on so-called conversion therapy — aimed at changing a young person’s sexual orientation — is unconstitutional and violates free speech rights. The justices threw out, on Tuesday, a lower court ruling upholding the ban.An 8-1 majority decision authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch states that the 5-year-old law violates the First Amendment because it “regulates speech based on viewpoint.”The lawsuit, Chiles v. Salazar, centered on the question of whether Colorado’s law regulates professional conduct or violates the First Amendment’s protection for free speech. Tuesday’s decision could impact similar bans in nearly two dozen other states.Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor and a practicing Christian, filed the suit, stating that she does not seek to “change” anyone’s sexual orientation but believes clients can “accept the bodies that God has given them.”Colorado’s solicitor general, Shannon Stevenson, argued that states should be able to regulate health care professionals to ensure they are not providing substandard care or promoting unproven treatments. The state argued that conversion therapy has been debunked and is harmful. “Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same,” Justice Gorsuch wrote in the court’s opinion. “But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth.”“However well-intentioned, any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an ‘egregious’ assault on both of those commitments,” Justice Gorsuch wrote.Justice Gorsuch stated that the question justices considered was narrow because Ms. Chiles did not question that Colorado’s law has some constitutionally sound applications. “She does not take issue with the State’s effort to prohibit what she herself calls ‘long-abandoned, aversive’ physical interventions. Instead, Ms. Chiles stresses that she provides only talk therapy, employing no physical techniques or medications. Yet, she argues, Colorado’s law still applies to her, prescribing what she may say in ‘voluntary counseling conversations’ with her clients.”The court held that the lower courts should have applied a more rigorous standard of review and remanded the case for further proceedings on whether the law meets a legal standard related to free speech.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole dissenter and her response was longer than the majority opinion. Justice Jackson claimed the decision “threatens to impair states’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect.”“Stated simply, the majority has failed to appreciate the crucial context in which Chiles’s constitutional claims have arisen,” Justice Jackson wrote. ” Under our precedents, bedrock First Amendment principles have far less salience when the speakers are medical professionals and their treatment-related speech is being restricted incidentally to the State’s regulation of the provision of medical care,” Justice Jackson continued.Justice Gorsuch wrote that Justice Jackson’s “argument stumbles out of the gate.”Justice Elena Kagan wrote a concurring opinion and was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Her opinion included a footnote that also slapped down Justice Jackson’s arguments.Justice Kagan wrote that Justice Jackson’s view “rests on reimagining — and in that way collapsing — the well-settled distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based speech restrictions.”

Supreme Court Strikes Down Colorado Ban on ‘Conversion Therapy’ With 8-1 Ruling

Supreme Court Strikes Down Colorado Ban on ‘Conversion Therapy’ With 8-1 Ruling

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