SCOTUS. (Photo Credit: Fred Schilling, The Supreme Court of the U.S.)
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled against a Colorado law banning the discredited practice of conversion therapy March 31, a blow to LGBTQ+ rights.
SCOTUS heard Chiles v. Salazar in October, seeming likely to side with a Christian counselor who challenged the state’s ban on the discredited practice. They did so with an 8-1 vote, with only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.
The court “sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment,” the Associated Press reports. “The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide if it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.”
According to SCOTUSblog, they held that “Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy, as applied to petitioner’s talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint, and the lower courts erred by failing to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. He noted that SCOTUS does “not doubt that the question ‘how best to help minors’ struggling with issues of gender identity or sexual orientation is presently the subject of ‘fierce public debate.
“But Colorado’s law addressing conversion therapy does not just ban physical interventions,” he continued. “In cases like this, it censors speech based on viewpoint. Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety… But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
Gorsuch added that “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.”
“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,” Jackson wrote in her dissent.
“No one directly disputes that Colorado has the power to regulate the medical treatments that state-licensed professionals provide to patients,” she continued. “Nor is it asserted that, when doing so, a State always runs afoul of the Constitution. So,
in my view, it cannot also be the case that Colorado’s decision to restrict a dangerous therapy modality that, incidentally, involves provider speech is presumptively unconstitutional.”
Jackson also shared that “because the majority plays with fire in this case, I fear the people of this country will get burned.”
“Before now, licensed medical professionals had to adhere to standards when treating patients: They could neither do
nor say whatever they want,” the justice wrote. “Largely due to such State regulation, Americans have been privileged to enjoy a long and successful tradition of high-quality medical care. Today, the Court turns its back on that tradition.”
The Human Rights Campaign was among those to condemn the ruling.
“To undermine protections that keep kids and families safe from these abusive practices is shocking — and our children deserve better,” said HRC President Kelley Robinson.
“This ruling undermines critical protections for youth in 23 States and the District of Columbia against so-called ‘conversion therapy,’ leaving children vulnerable to abusive and ineffective practices that harm families and devastate mental health outcomes.”
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Among others, conversion therapy has been discredited by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Additional coverage will follow.
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