US Supreme Court to hear challenge to law banning conversion therapy

Washington: The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear a First Amendment challenge to a Colorado law banning professional counseling services engaged in conversion therapy intended to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation.

More than 20 states have similar laws, which are supported by leading medical groups. Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor, challenged the constitutionality of the Colorado law in federal court, saying it violated her rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

The challenged law prohibits licensed therapists in Colorado from performing conversion therapy, which it defines to include efforts “to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” That includes trying “to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

The law, adopted in 2019, allow treatments that provide “acceptance, support and understanding.” It exempts therapists “engaged in the practice of religious ministry.”

Chiles’ lawyers told the justices in her petition seeking review that as “a practicing Christian, Chiles believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex.”

In her lawsuit, Chiles said she wanted to help her clients achieve their goals, which can include “seeking to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors or grow in the experience of harmony with one’s physical body.”

In response, lawyers for Colorado said the “First Amendment allows states to reasonably regulate professional conduct to protect patients from substandard treatment, even when that regulation incidentally burdens speech.”

Chiles is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm and advocacy group that has litigated many cases for clients opposed to abortion, insurance coverage for contraception, and gay and transgender rights. The group has won a series of victories at the Supreme Court, including one on behalf of a Colorado web designer who said she did not want to create websites celebrating same-sex weddings that was decided in 2023.

A divided three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver, ruled that Colorado was entitled to regulate a licensed professional’s conduct, citing evidence that conversion therapy harms minors.

In dissent, Judge Harris Hartz wrote that “courts must be particularly wary that in a contentious and evolving field, the government and its supporters would like to bypass the marketplace of ideas and declare victory for their preferred ideas by fiat.”

In her petition seeking Supreme Court review in the case, Chiles v. Salazar, No. 24-539, Chiles pursued only her free speech argument. Her lawyers said another one of the Alliance Defending Freedom’s victories required a decision in Chiles’ favor. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that California could not require religiously oriented “crisis pregnancy centers” to supply women with information about how to end their pregnancies.

The court has turned down earlier cases challenging state laws regulating conversion therapy, over the dissents of some conservative justices. In 2023, for instance, when the court turned down a challenge to a Washington state law, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he would have granted the petition.

“This petition asks us to consider whether Washington can censor counselors who help minors accept their biological sex,” Thomas wrote. “Because this question has divided the courts of appeals and strikes at the heart of the First Amendment, I would grant review.”