Supreme Court overturns Colorado ban on converion therapy

[shenmue]

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-conversion-therapy-colorado-92b34295f9ef497a4a1cbeb56c9b74c6

Only Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson dissented.

I am sorry for this, everyone.

[WSHazel]

1. This ruling turns free speech on its head

People should be allowed to provide political speech, but free speech does not include presenting political opinions as medical or mental health treatment. By this logic, someone could hand you a glass of arsenic and claim it was a magical elixir to cure all your ailments.

[synni]

2. We need right wing nut job conversion therapy

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Deadline Legal Blog-Supreme Court sides with Christian counselor over Colorado on 'conversion therapy' for minors

Medical groups warned that efforts to change sexual orientation and gender identity are illegitimate, ineffective and can be especially harmful to minors.

Deadline: Legal Blog - Supreme Court sides with Christian counselor over Colorado on ‘conversion therapy’ for minors

Medical groups warned that efforts to change sexual orientation and gender identity are illegitimate, ineffective and can be especially harmful to minors.

— Lola Gayle (@lolagaylec.bsky.social) 2026-03-31T15:45:12.868Z

https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/supreme-court-conversion-therapy-colorado

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with a Christian counselor over Colorado in her challenge to the state’s ban on so-called conversion therapy for minors.

In an 8-1 ruling by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court said that the state’s law, as applied to talk therapy provided by the counselor, Kaley Chiles, conflicts with First Amendment principles because it regulates speech based on viewpoint. Gorsuch wrote that the amendment “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”

About half the states in the country have banned or restricted the practice that aims to change a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity.....

Focusing in on Chiles’ claim, Gorsuch called the question before the court a narrow one. “Ms. Chiles does not question that Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy has some constitutionally sound applications,” the Trump appointee wrote. He noted that she doesn’t take issue with the state’s effort to prohibit physical interventions, but rather, she only provides talk therapy.

The problem, she argued, is that because the state’s law strikes at the heart of First Amendment speech protections, the lower courts didn’t provide rigorous enough scrutiny against the state in her legal challenge. ....

Upholding the district court’s ruling against Chiles, a divided appellate panel said the law only “incidentally” involves speech because counseling necessarily involves speech, but that the state isn’t restricting her constitutional expression.

“In other words, Ms. Chiles’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech is implicated under the MCTL [Minor Conversion Therapy Law], but it is not abridged,” the panel majority said, over dissent from a judge who said the majority’s “wordplay” in distinguishing speech from conduct posed “a serious threat to free speech.”

The panel majority noted that Chiles remained free to share her views on conversion therapy, sexual orientation and gender identity; that she can criticize Colorado for restricting her administration of conversion therapy; that she can refer clients to other service providers, like religious ministers; and that she can provide conversion therapy to adult clients.

I feel a little better. Talk therapy is not the same as the torture methods used in many forms of conversion therapy. Other forms of conversion therapy are still illegal.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Deadline Legal Blog-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson steps out alone, again - this time on 'conversion therapy'

The Biden appointee made the rare move of dissenting from the bench, in the latest action separating her from her colleagues.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson steps out alone, again – this time on ‘conversion therapy’

💾

©

— Irish News 🇮🇪 (@news-flows-ir.bsky.social) 2026-03-31T16:56:54.000000Z

https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/justice-ketanji-brown-jackson-dissent-conversion-therapy

In her dissent, the Biden appointee wrote that the practice of seeking to “convert” a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity has been “widely discredited within the medical and scientific community” and found to cause “lasting psychological harm.”

Departing from Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion for eight members of the court, Jackson wrote, “The conclusion that a State can regulate the provision of medical care even if, in so doing, it incidentally restricts the speech of some providers, fully comports with the First Amendment’s animating principles.”

She continued: “Ultimately, because the majority plays with fire in this case, I fear that the people of this country will get burned.” Until now, she wrote, licensed medical professionals couldn’t do or say whatever they wanted. States could regulate them, which, she wrote, contributed to the high quality of American care.

“Today, the Court turns its back on that tradition,” Jackson wrote. “And, to be completely frank, no one knows what will happen now.” She accused the majority of reaching this “momentous decision” without “adequately grappling with the potential long-term and disastrous implications of this ruling.”

The justice closed her solo dissent by worrying about the majority having opened a “dangerous can of worms” that “threatens to impair States’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect,” pushes the Constitution “into uncharted territory in an utterly irrational fashion” and “risks grave harm to Americans’ health and wellbeing.”

I agree with Jackson's dissent. I believe that conversion therapy is close to torture. The fact that you can use "talk therapy" may open a dangerous can of worms. I strongly believe in the First Amendment but here there needs to be limits. Talk therapy is less objectionable compared to other methods of conversion therapy but it has risks.

[GiqueCee]

5. JFC, conversion therapy...

... is pure quackery. We should expect advocacy for such horseshit from the malevolent swine on the Dark Side of the Court, but for Kagan and Sotomayor to concur should astound and disappoint anyone with a modicum of critical thinking skills.
And once again, religion pokes its ugly nose where it doesn't belong. Reams of documented scientific research in support of gender identity acceptance is flushed down the toilet in favor of the sanctimonious and insupportable edicts of those with ZERO clinical qualifications to pass such judgement, aside from Gawd said this, that, or the other thing, so there.
I saw no mention of hearing testimony from clinicians with extensive experience in treating such cases, but officious frauds with a vested financial interest in the outcome were apparently afforded rapt attention.
But that's conservatism for ya. Put yer thumb on the scales of justice and call it wisdom.

[Sibelius Fan]

6. Unfortunately, being held hostage to one's religious beliefs trumps one's political leanings.

SCOTUS obviously champions belief in make believe over equality.