The U.S. Supreme Court appeared skeptical today about Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. About half the states have such laws.
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Today, the Supreme Court seemed ready to side with a Christian therapist who objects to a Colorado law that she maintains violates her free speech rights. If the court does rule in her favor, the decision could invalidate laws in some two dozen states – laws that bar therapists from practicing a version of talk therapy that seeks to change a teenager’s sexual orientation or gender identity. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Today’s case involved a new wrinkle on an old therapy, specifically something called conversion therapy. It’s generally defined as a treatment used to change a person’s attraction for same-sex individuals and to similarly cure gender dysphoria. In whatever form, the therapy has been forcefully repudiated by every major medical organization in the country on grounds that the therapy doesn’t work and often leads to depression and suicidal thoughts in minors.
But today at the Supreme Court, lawyers for Colorado therapist Kaley Chiles told the justices that the way their client practices involves no physical restraints or coercion of any kind. Rather, said lawyer James Campbell, it’s all talk therapy, and the state’s ban on what Chiles does prevents these voluntary conversations with minors.
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JAMES CAMPBELL: Miss Chiles is being silenced. The kids and the families who want this kind of help that she’ll offer are being left without any support.
TOTENBERG: Representing Colorado, State Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson replied by noting the high rates of suicide among minors who face problems about their sexuality and gender. Responding to questions from the justices, she said that under the state’s conversion therapy law, therapists may not promise a cure that will transform a gay teenager into a straight teenager.
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SHANNON STEVENSON: It would be banned. If it was, can you help me cope with my feelings as to how I am and how I want to live my life, that’s permitted.
TOTENBERG: Conservative Justice Samuel Alito had this reaction.
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SAMUEL ALITO: Looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination.
TOTENBERG: By viewpoint discrimination, he meant that in his view, the state was supporting one way of dealing with sexuality in minors but unconstitutionally silencing a different view. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had a somewhat different take, noting that medical doctors would clearly be liable if they used a medication that the state deemed substandard care.
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KETANJI BROWN JACKSON: It’s just a little puzzling to me that she would stand in a different position than a medical professional who has exactly the same goals and would just be prescribing medication rather than her talking with the client.
TOTENBERG: But most of the other justices, including liberal Justice Elena Kagan, didn’t seem to see things that way. Here’s Kagan.
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ELENA KAGAN: Just assume that we’re in normal free speech land rather than in this kind of doctor land. And if a doctor says, I know you identify as gay, and I’m going to help you accept that. And another doctor says, I know you identify as gay, and I’m going to help you to change that. And one of those is permissible, and the other is not. That seems like viewpoint discrimination in the way we would normally understand viewpoint discrimination.
TOTENBERG: Chiles, for her part, has not used her preferred therapy on anyone yet because she says she fears losing her license as a therapist or being fined if she did. Her lawyers say that the Colorado law thus unconstitutionally chills her right to free speech. The state’s contrary view is that it must ensure that medical professionals do not engage in debunked psychological theories that are condemned by organizations as diverse as the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association. But today, a clear majority of the justices across ideological lines seemed inclined to rule against the Colorado law. And in doing so, they could be upending similar state laws in half the country.
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
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