(Daily Caller News Foundation) — The Supreme Court sided Tuesday with a Christian mental health counselor who challenged Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy.”
The justices held 8-1 that Colorado’s law, which forces counselor Kaley Chiles to affirm minors’ gender dysphoria even when they desire help feeling comfortable in their bodies, “regulates speech based on viewpoint.”
“Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. “Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same. 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.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented alone, warning the “fallout could be catastrophic” because the majority ignored “medical consensus.”
“It is baffling that we could now be standing on the edge of a precipitous drop in the quality of healthcare services in America,” she wrote. “But the Court sees fit to bring us one step closer to that fate today. Stranger still is the fact that this possibility looms in the 21st century—given what science now enables us to know about medical conditions and treatments, what our cases say, and what we all should have learned by now from history.”
Gorsuch noted that medical consensus “is not static; it evolves and always has.”
“A prevailing standard of care may reflect what most practitioners believe today, but it cannot mark the outer boundary of what they may say tomorrow,” he wrote. “Far from a test of professional consensus, the First Amendment rests instead on a simple truth: ‘[T]he people lose’ whenever the government transforms prevailing opinion into enforced conformity.”
Colorado’s Minor Conversion Therapy Law was passed in 2019 and defines “conversion therapy” as efforts to “change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” including romantic attractions or gender expressions.
First Amendment concerns would be implicated no matter “what the State’s preferred side is,” Justice Elena Kagan noted in a concurring opinion joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“Consider a hypothetical law that is the mirror image of Colorado’s,” she wrote. “Instead of barring talk therapy designed to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity, this law bars therapy affirming those things. As Ms. Chiles readily acknowledges, the First Amendment would apply in the identical way.”
During a press conference following the ruling, Chiles said she hopes “this win for free speech will fuel a greater pursuit of truth.”
“Kids deserve real help affirming that their bodies are not a mistake, and that they are wonderfully made,” she said. “I’m grateful that my speech is protected, but I’m even more excited that families and children seeking access to counseling that respects biological reality will be able to get the help they need.”
Alliance Defending Freedom Chief Legal Counsel Jim Campbell, who argued the case before the Supreme Court in October, said the decision will help protect counselors from similar laws in “more than 20 other states and over 100 localities around the country.”
“Families should be able to access counseling that respects biological reality,” Campbell said. “Because of this ruling, they can. From professional groups to medical malpractice verdicts, the tide is turning on the issue of gender ideology and the truth is coming to light.”
This article was originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
