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Supreme Court takes up challenge to Colorado conversion therapy ban

Supreme Court takes up challenge to Colorado conversion therapy ban

Yahoo10-03-2025

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to a law in Colorado that bans 'conversion therapy' aimed at young people questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity.
With more than 20 states with similar bans, the court's eventual ruling is likely to have nationwide implications.
The justices took up an appeal brought by Kaley Chiles, a Christian therapist, who argued that the restriction violates her free speech rights under the Constitution's First Amendment.
Favored by some religious conservatives, the practice is aimed at encouraging gay or lesbian minors to change their sexual orientations and transgender children to identify as the gender identities assigned to them at birth.
Chiles often has clients who are Christians, some of whom have questions about their sexual orientation and gender identity amid concerns that they are unable to live their lives in accordance with their faith, according to court papers. As such, they seek counseling to suppress unwanted sexual attractions or to resolve conflicts about their gender identity.
"The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors, nor should a counselor be used as a tool to impose the government's biased views on her clients," Kristen Waggoner, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian advocacy group representing Chiles, said in a statement.
Chiles' lawyers cite in part the Supreme Court's 2018 ruling that struck down on free speech grounds a California law that required anti-abortion pregnancy clinics to notify clients about abortion access.
The lawyers argue that the bans have 'devastating real world consequences' including on rare cases of 'detransitioners' — the small proportion of transgender people who change course and wish to identity as the gender they were assigned at birth.
Limiting counseling options communicates to 'countless minors they have no choice but to medically transition,' the lawyers said.
Colorado officials wrote in their brief that the state measure regulates conduct, not speech.
"States have long regulated medical practices to protect patients from harmful professional conduct," Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Colorado's law protecting young people from unscientific and cruel gay conversion therapy practices is human, smart, and appropriate.'
A federal judge and the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the state.
The Supreme Court has on several occasions refused to take up challenges to similar conversion therapy bans, most recently in December 2023, when it left a law in Washington state in place. Three conservative justices said at that time they would have taken up the case.
The new case will be argued and decided in the court's next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2026.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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Bishop's village attacked, 20 slain after recent testimony to Congress on Christian persecution
Bishop's village attacked, 20 slain after recent testimony to Congress on Christian persecution

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  • Yahoo

Bishop's village attacked, 20 slain after recent testimony to Congress on Christian persecution

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DOGE's Supreme Court victory is a huge loss for Americans' privacy
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DOGE's Supreme Court victory is a huge loss for Americans' privacy

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Trump Can and Should Fire Fed Boss Over Economy
Trump Can and Should Fire Fed Boss Over Economy

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Trump Can and Should Fire Fed Boss Over Economy

Federal Reserve kingpin Jerome Powell is busy doing what he does best: sabotaging a prosperous economy so that President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans lose popularity. Hes also ignoring Trump, whom voters will judge for the economys performance and whom the Constitution says runs the executive branch of which the Fed is a part. This is old hat for Powell, who, after being installed by Trump in 2018, got straight to work undermining his bosss economic recovery. You may recall that one of the circumstances that brought an unusual candidate like Trump to power in 2016 was the preceding decade of economic malaise. The Obama years averaged just 2.1% annual growth - the most lethargic economic recovery since World War II. It was fashionable among establishment economists to say that growth above this level, especially the 4.3% average annual growth of the Reagan boom, was simply unobtainable. Big-government economists - practically a redundant phrase today - called it "secular stagnation." Enter Trump. Upon taking office, he immediately began deregulating the U.S. economy, particularly in the energy sector. He worked with Congress to lower the corporate tax rate from 35%, which was nearly the highest among advanced economies, to a more competitive 21%. He also cut personal income taxes for every income bracket, which meant lower taxes for the majority of small business owners who pull company income and taxes onto their personal tax returns. Trump also incentivized corporations to bring home capital they held overseas. Apple alone said it would bring home a majority of its roughly $252 billion in offshore reserves, paying a one-time tax of $38 billion. The results for the broader economy were impressive. Annualized GDP growth in the quarter Trump took office was 2.0%. By the end of the year, it had jumped to 4.6%. Unemployment dropped from 4.7% to 4.0%. 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They believe economic growth leads inevitably to inflation, despite repeated economic expansions, including most notably Reagans, in which the expansion of the private-sector economy leads to more goods and services produced and stable prices. In 2018, Powell saw looming inflation where there was none and tightened monetary policy for the first time since 2008. When Trump was elected in 2016, the federal funds effective rate stood at 0.41%. Despite no inflation, the Fed began a relentless cycle of rate increases that reached 2.2% in time for the 2018 midterm elections, when Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives to Democrats, leading eventually to Trumps impeachment. Beyond being a Keynesian, Powell is also a fool. Trumps first term isnt the only time he saw inflation where there was none, or failed to see inflation when it was obvious. During the Biden administration, long after the pandemic had peaked, Powell enabled continued federal spending at crisis levels despite the lack of a crisis. Bidens Treasury Department issued bonds to pay for unprecedented deficits in excess of $1.5 trillion. This only worked because Powell had the Fed buy the bonds with dollars created out of thin air. He also tried to goose the Biden economy by buying mortgages from banks immediately after they were issued. The Feds balance sheet of debt it owned grew from $7.4 trillion when Biden took office to a peak of $10 trillion just over a year later. Powell also kept interest rates near zero even as inflation caused by his dilution of the dollar skyrocketed. Inflation peaked at over 9% in 2022, and the cumulative inflation of the Biden years and Powells debasement of the currency eliminated more than 20% of Americans purchasing power. Powell and his establishment friends had assured Americans that inflation was "transient" when it wasnt. Powell was eventually forced to acknowledge inflation and reluctantly began hiking interest rates to above 5%. He then started lowering them just before the 2024 election in an effort to help Democrats keep the White House. But the easing stopped when Trump took office. Even as central banks in Europe have cut rates due to the lack of inflation, Powell and his clique at the Fed have refused to do so, keeping them at sustained heights not seen in 20 years. Trump has repeatedly pressured Powell to lower rates. He did so again on June 6 when the government reported that job growth had moderated and revised downward the job growth reported in previous months. If a Republican president pressuring Powell could work, it would have worked by now. Instead, Trump will have to fire Powell and replace him with a pro-private-sector-growth banker who takes guidance from the president. Powell and many establishment pooh-bahs think such a move would be illegal. After Trumps reelection, Powell vowednot to resign and said his termination is "not permitted under the law." In fact, the Federal Reserve Act does allow Powells removal "for cause," and grotesque incompetence and political conniving ought both to qualify. But in fact, the whole idea of an "independent" Federal Reserve is unconstitutional, and Trump should fire Powell not only to save the economic recovery but to restore the power of the presidency and recognize the reality that the American people hold the president responsible for economic performance. If he is on the hook to perform, he must control the tools to do so. Article II of the Constitution states plainly, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." In the Federalist Papers #70, Alexander Hamilton explained the necessity of the strong executive created by the then-draft Constitution to skeptics: "A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government." Its as though Hamilton could foresee Powell and the Fed of 2025. There should be no doubt that the Framers of the Constitution intended the president to have the power to fire anyone as part of his responsibility to supervise the unitary executive branch. What was true in 1789 is still true today: any schmuck in Washington knows no bureaucrat will pay you much attention unless you might plausibly take away his job or budget. Creating a person beyond the reach of the president in the executive branch would be like creating an unelected politburo in Congress to handle certain issues, or a special court completely independent from the Supreme Court to handle certain legal cases. Voters would see such actions as obviously unconstitutional attempts to weaken those pillars of democracy. So too is a theoretically independent Fed - an essentially fascist construct that purports to put monetary policy beyond the reach of the president, weakening the office held by the only man who represents all of the American people. In recent years, the Supreme Court has consistently held that the president has the right to fire executive branch officials. It did so again last month in allowing Trump to dismiss members of supposedly independent federal agencies. There was, however, a glitch. The unsigned order stated that: "The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States." This red herring in the courts order implied its recognition of the presidents power to fire might not extend to the Fed. In reality, there is nothing "quasi-private" about an organization that sets interest rates and decides how many dollars to print. Furthermore, the court should take note of another "distinct historical tradition" that began in Franklin Roosevelts administration of pondering packing the court with new justices when its rulings are at odds with the wishes of administrations and Congresses. Its better to stick with what the Constitution means and says lest a flexible view of the Framers intent turn around and bite the court or Congress in their asses. Furthermore, make-believe about an independent Federal Reserve was more believable when Fed chairmen took cues from presidents regardless of their political party. More recently, Fed bosses have joined the rest of the Deep State in seeking to help Democrats and harm Republicans. Firing Powell and dispensing with the fiction of his unfireability will be good for the economy, good for the presidency, and good for democracy. Christian Whiton was a senior advisor at the State Department in the second Bush and first Trump administrations and served as an adviser to the secretary of state and other senior officials about public affairs and East Asia matters. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a principal at Rockies Aria LLC, a public affairs and government relations firm.

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