TL/DR –
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Colorado’s ban on therapists providing conversion therapy to LGBTQ+ individuals under 18 years old. Lawyers for therapist Kaley Chiles believe the ban violates her right to free speech, specifically her Christian views. Critics of the ban argue that it oversteps by prohibiting professionals from practicing conversion therapy on minors, potentially compromising the power of states to ensure mental health professionals comply with standards of care.
In prior cases, the Supreme Court backed a web developer and baker who refused to serve same-sex couples due to religious beliefs.
In Colorado, a groundbreaker for gay rights yet also criticized as the \”hate state,\” the Supreme Court is addressing its third case concerning LGBTQ+ matters in seven years. Previously, the court sided with a website developer and a cake baker who denied services to gay couples citing religious reasons.
The justices are now hearing arguments that the state’s prohibition on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ minors infringes a private therapist\’s free speech rights. The law outlines conversion therapy as any practice aiming to alter an individual\’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Free speech vs. healthcare regulation
Therapist Kaley Chiles’ lawyers argue that the law violates her First Amendment right to express her Christian views on a subject of ‘intense public debate.’ State Attorney General Philip Weiser, a Democrat, counters that the law only bans conversion therapy aimed at changing a child\’s sexual orientation or gender identity, not counselors discussing the treatment or criticizing the ban.
Colorado’s complex history with gay rights
Colorado has a complex history with gay rights. In 1975, two men received a marriage license in Boulder County, possibly the first same-sex marriage license issued in the U.S. Yet in 1992, the state approved a ballot measure blocking protections for individuals based on their “homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation.” The Supreme Court eventually struck down this measure in 1996.
In 2018, Governor Jared Polis, the country’s first openly gay man elected governor, signed the contested conversion-therapy law. But hostility persisted, highlighted by the 2022 shooting at LGBTQ+ club Club Q where Anderson Lee Aldrich was sentenced to life in prison for murdering five people and injuring 19.
Previous Supreme Court rulings in favor of business owners
The Supreme Court recently sided with two Colorado business owners arguing that the state’s anti-discrimination laws violated their free speech or religious practice rights. In 2023, the high court supported web designer Lorie Smith’s right to refuse to create websites for same-sex weddings due to her religious beliefs.
Then in 2018, baker Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop was cleared of discrimination for refusing to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The court ruled that the state law exhibited religious “hostility” against him. The court’s stance on whether other opponents of same-sex marriage can refuse commercial wedding services to gay couples remains unresolved.
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