Latest news with #MinorConversionTherapyLaw
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Blue state's LGBT 'conversion therapy' ban violates Constitution, 'very easy case' for SCOTUS, says expert
The U.S. Supreme Court this week decided to take up a case challenging a Colorado law banning so-called "conversion therapy" after a licensed Christian therapist, Kaley Chiles, claimed the law violated her First Amendment rights. The case in question, Chiles v. Salazar, comes less than two years after the Supreme Court declined to take up a similar case challenging a law in Washington state that bars licensed therapists from practicing "conversion therapy" on minors. In that case, conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the opinion to not take it up, saying they would have granted it review. "A practicing Christian, Chiles believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God's design, including their biological sex," the Supreme Court noted in its writ of certiorari accepting the case. "Many of her clients seek her counsel precisely because they believe that their faith and their relationship with God establishes the foundation upon which to understand their identity and desires. But Colorado bans these consensual conversations based on the viewpoints they express." Soros-backed Judge Defends Reduced Sentence For Repeat Child Molester At Debate In State Supreme Court Race According to the writ, the question to be considered at oral arguments before the court is, "Whether a law that censors certain conversations between counselors and their clients based on the viewpoints expressed regulates conduct or violates the Free Speech Clause." Heritage Foundation legal scholar Sarah Parshall Perry said the law is a "very clear First Amendment violation" and that the state legislature has essentially set up a "constitutional challenge based on viewpoint discrimination." Read On The Fox News App "The state of Colorado has averred that the legislature has determined that the standard of care for these individuals should not be anything other than affirmation of their desires for homosexual orientation or a divergent gender identity, and this herein really lies the rub," Perry told Fox News Digital in an interview. "and that's exactly how the petitioner, Kaley Chiles, has presented it here. She said, essentially, in layman's terms, on the one side, you're allowing conversations to do nothing but affirm." The Colorado Attorney General's Office filed an amicus brief in support of the state's Minor Conversion Therapy Law, which was enacted in 2019. The legislation specifically prevents mental health professionals from engaging in "conversion therapy" with minors. Scotus Turns Down Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone Challenge, Thomas Slams 'Abdication' Of Duty "Conversion therapy," according to the legislation, is defined as "any practice or treatment by a licensed physician specializing in the practice of psychiatry that attempts or purports to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex." The law says that "conversion therapy" does not include counseling that helps individuals explore their gender identity, receive social support, or cope with personal challenges, as long as the counseling does not attempt to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. The law also permits assistance for individuals undergoing gender transition, as long as the counseling is not focused on altering their sexual orientation or gender identity. "In Colorado, we are committed to protecting professional standards of care so that no one suffers unscientific and harmful so-called gay conversion therapy. Colorado's judgment on this is the humane, smart, and appropriate policy and we're committed to defending it," Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement about the case. Anti-trump Measure Ignores 'Rising Crime' And 'Cost Of Living,' Blue State Gop Officials Charge While this is one of several recent cases SCOTUS has accepted to hear that deals with gender ideology issues – a culture war issue President Donald Trump has weighed in on through several executive actions since taking office – it also bucked several high-profile petitions last week, including Maryland's ban on semi-automatic firearms and Rhode Island's ban of high-capacity magazines. "It's not in any way emblematic of the fact that there is a conservative in the White House, simply because these justices, three of them, have been appointed by this particular POTUS, I don't think has any bearing one way or the other, and they have been very strong on the First Amendment," Perry said. "This, to my mind, should be a very easy case."Original article source: Blue state's LGBT 'conversion therapy' ban violates Constitution, 'very easy case' for SCOTUS, says expert
Fox News
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Blue state's LGBT 'conversion therapy' ban violates Constitution, 'very easy case' for SCOTUS, says expert
The U.S. Supreme Court this week decided to take up a case challenging a Colorado law banning so-called "conversion therapy" after a licensed Christian therapist, Kaley Chiles, claimed the law violated her First Amendment rights. The case in question, Chiles v. Salazar, comes less than two years after the Supreme Court declined to take up a similar case challenging a law in Washington state that bars licensed therapists from practicing "conversion therapy" on minors. In that case, conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the opinion to not take it up, saying they would have granted it review. "A practicing Christian, Chiles believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God's design, including their biological sex," the Supreme Court noted in its writ of certiorari accepting the case. "Many of her clients seek her counsel precisely because they believe that their faith and their relationship with God establishes the foundation upon which to understand their identity and desires. But Colorado bans these consensual conversations based on the viewpoints they express." According to the writ, the question to be considered at oral arguments before the court is, "Whether a law that censors certain conversations between counselors and their clients based on the viewpoints expressed regulates conduct or violates the Free Speech Clause." Heritage Foundation legal scholar Sarah Parshall Perry said the law is a "very clear First Amendment violation" and that the state legislature has essentially set up a "constitutional challenge based on viewpoint discrimination." "The state of Colorado has averred that the legislature has determined that the standard of care for these individuals should not be anything other than affirmation of their desires for homosexual orientation or a divergent gender identity, and this herein really lies the rub," Perry told Fox News Digital in an interview. "and that's exactly how the petitioner, Kaley Chiles, has presented it here. She said, essentially, in layman's terms, on the one side, you're allowing conversations to do nothing but affirm." The Colorado Attorney General's Office filed an amicus brief in support of the state's Minor Conversion Therapy Law, which was enacted in 2019. The legislation specifically prevents mental health professionals from engaging in "conversion therapy" with minors. "Conversion therapy," according to the legislation, is defined as "any practice or treatment by a licensed physician specializing in the practice of psychiatry that attempts or purports to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex." The law says that "conversion therapy" does not include counseling that helps individuals explore their gender identity, receive social support, or cope with personal challenges, as long as the counseling does not attempt to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. The law also permits assistance for individuals undergoing gender transition, as long as the counseling is not focused on altering their sexual orientation or gender identity. "In Colorado, we are committed to protecting professional standards of care so that no one suffers unscientific and harmful so-called gay conversion therapy. Colorado's judgment on this is the humane, smart, and appropriate policy and we're committed to defending it," Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement about the case. While this is one of several recent cases SCOTUS has accepted to hear that deals with gender ideology issues – a culture war issue President Donald Trump has weighed in on through several executive actions since taking office – it also bucked several high-profile petitions last week, including Maryland's ban on semi-automatic firearms and Rhode Island's ban of high-capacity magazines. "It's not in any way emblematic of the fact that there is a conservative in the White House, simply because these justices, three of them, have been appointed by this particular POTUS, I don't think has any bearing one way or the other, and they have been very strong on the First Amendment," Perry said. "This, to my mind, should be a very easy case."
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The Supreme Court Might Re-Legalize LGBTQ Conversion Therapy
The Supreme Court is taking up yet another case that threatens to roll back the clock for gay and transgender Americans. The justices announced on Monday that they would hear a First Amendment challenge to Colorado's ban on conversion therapy, the first lawsuit of its kind to reach the high court. More than 20 states currently forbid medical professionals from offering corrective 'treatments' for gay and transgender youth that seek to change their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Major medical organizations have unanimously condemned conversion therapy as unscientific and potentially dangerous for patients. If the justices strike down such laws, states would have far fewer tools to protect gay and transgender Americans from harmful and often coercive treatments. This particular case does not directly involve any LGBTQ patients. Instead it centers on Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs. Chiles told the courts that she often focuses on clients who are struggling with addiction and other serious issues. Her religious views often inform how she counsels her patients. 'Like Chiles, these clients 'believe their faith and their relationships with God' inform 'romantic attractions and that God determines their identity according to what He has revealed in the Bible,'' her lawyers told the court in their petition for review. 'These clients believe their lives will be more fulfilling if aligned with the teachings of their faith, and they want to achieve freedom from what they see as harmful self-perceptions and sexual behaviors.' Chiles does not currently practice conversion therapy. In the past, however, she told the lower courts that she 'helped clients freely discuss sexual attractions, behaviors, and identity by talking with them about gender roles, identity, sexual attractions, root causes of desires, behavior and values.' That approach ended in 2019 when Colorado became one of nearly two dozen states to ban conversion therapy by enacting the Minor Conversion Therapy Law, or MCGL. The law forbade licensed medical professionals and counselors from utilizing 'any practice or treatment' that 'attempts or purports to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity' or 'eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.' While Chiles only practices talk therapy, conversion therapy providers in other states have tried to use aversion therapy, hypnosis, and even electric shocks to try to change their clients' orientations and identities. Since Colorado's ban went into effect, Chiles told the lower courts, she 'has been unable to fully explore certain clients' bodily experiences around sexuality and gender and how their sensations, thoughts, beliefs, interpretations, and behaviors intersect.' In 2022, she filed a lawsuit against the state and its licensing boards, arguing that the ban on conversion therapy amounted to viewpoint-based 'censorship' and thus violated the First Amendment. The lower courts rejected her argument. States generally have the power to regulate professional conduct, especially in the medical field. In recent years, however, the Supreme Court's conservative majority has been more receptive to challenges to those regulations on free speech grounds. In the 2018 case NIFLA v. Becerra, for example, the justices struck down a California law that required crisis pregnancy centers—anti-abortion clinics that try to deter sometimes unknowing patients from obtaining the procedure—to inform patients about their options to obtain an abortion. California defended the law by arguing that it could require medical practitioners and counselors to give medically relevant information to pregnant clients. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, still held that such a requirement violated the First Amendment. The required notices and disclaimers amounted to compelled speech that could not be constitutionally justified on the grounds of professional regulations, he wrote. In striking down the law, the court's conservatives limited states' ability to regulate 'professional speech,' a category of speech that had been widely recognized by the lower courts. Federal judges had long recognized that there were limits to what lawyers and doctors could ethically tell their clients. But that approach was treated with some skepticism by the majority in NIFLA, opening the door to challenges like the one brought by Chiles. Another issue in Chiles v. Salazar is that the court appears to have taken up yet another case featuring a phantasmal injury to a plaintiff in order to achieve a predetermined outcome. The Supreme Court has an unfortunate habit in recent religious freedom disputes (or religious-adjacent free speech ones, as in this instance) of taking up cases with either underdeveloped records or nonexistent ones. Two years ago, in 303 Creative v. Elenis, the conservative majority held that a Colorado state law that prohibited anti-LGBT discrimination in public accommodations could not be used against a Christian website designer in the state. The plaintiff said that she wanted to be able to design wedding websites without offering them to same-sex couples, even though she had never designed wedding websites before the lawsuit. The Supreme Court duly ruled in the litigant's favor along the usual ideological lines. 303 Creative does not list weddings as one of its offered services to this day. The clients in both that case and this one were represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization that has won multiple victories in the Supreme Court against abortion rights and LGBT rights. Chiles's claim against Colorado is similarly preemptive and emphemeral. 'Neither of the respondent Boards has received a complaint about [Chiles], much less taken any disciplinary action against her,' the state of Colorado told the justices. '[Chiles] has never alleged that she intends to practice conversion therapy as defined by the MCTL. She nonetheless filed a pre-enforcement challenge in 2022, more than three years after the MCTL took effect.' This is not to say that litigants shouldn't file pre-enforcement challenges to allegedly unconstitutional laws. But the tactic can be used to obscure the underlying issues. In its brief urging the justices to not take up the case, the state of Colorado noted that the pre-enforcement nature of the challenge meant that the justices were not getting the full picture on conversion therapy and its harms. '[Chiles] offered no expert declarations or affidavits and now invokes unvetted and irrelevant non-record material to suggest that young people's health is at risk if health care professionals are unable to engage in conversion therapy—when the evidence indicates nothing of the sort,' the state argued. 'Her failure to develop a record also makes this an especially poor vehicle for considering her pre-enforcement, facial challenge.' Every major medical organization in the United States has condemned conversion therapy as pseudoscientific and dangerous. The American Medical Association noted that the tactic's underlying assumptions about sexual orientation and gender identity are 'not based on medical and scientific evidence.' The American Psychiatric Association and other groups have also criticized it by pointing to studies that show conversion therapy may increase suicidal ideation among LGBTQ youth. By taking up this case, the court's conservative majority could either narrow or strike down bans on conversion therapy by elevating the hypothetical harms done to counselors such as Chiles instead of the scientifically proven harms done to LGBTQ patients by such treatments. The justices are already considering a case this term on whether the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause protects transgender Americans from discrimination. In short, the court is poised to do tremendous damage to LGBTQ rights by the time its term ends this summer.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
US Supreme Court to hear challenge to 'conversion therapy' ban for minors
The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge by a Christian therapist to a Colorado law that bans "conversion therapy" for minors who are questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation. The case was brought by Kaley Chiles, a licensed mental health counselor who argues that the prohibition from holding such conversations with minors is a violation of her First Amendment free speech rights. Colorado's Minor Conversion Therapy Law, passed in 2019, prohibits licensed mental health professionals from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of their minor patients. Chiles is represented in the case before the conservative-dominated Supreme Court by Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal advocacy group. In her petition, Chiles's lawyers said she "believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God's design, including their biological sex." "Amidst a nationwide mental-health crisis, many minors struggling with gender dysphoria are seeking the counseling that Kaley Chiles would like to provide," they said. "They want help aligning their mind and body rather than chasing experimental medical interventions and risking permanent harm. "Yet it is this desperately needed counseling -- encouraging words between a licensed counselor and a consenting minor client -- that Colorado forbids," they said. Conversion therapy is banned in more than 20 US states and much of Europe, with both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association opposed to its use. In its brief with the Supreme Court, Colorado said there is "mounting evidence that conversion therapy is associated with increased depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts." Two lower courts ruled in favor of Colorado, and Chiles brought her case before the nation's top court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority. In December, the Supreme Court heard arguments over a Tennessee law banning puberty blockers or hormone therapy for minors and is expected to issue a ruling by the end of June. US President Donald Trump, shortly after taking office, signed an executive order restricting gender transition medical procedures for people under the age of 19. cl/jgc
CBS News
10-03-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Supreme Court takes up dispute over Colorado law banning "conversion therapy" for young people
Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up a challenge to state and local laws that ban so-called " conversion therapy" for LGBTQ children. The dispute before the court arose out of a Colorado law that prohibits licensed mental health professionals from engaging in conversion therapy on children who may be questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity. More than 20 states and the District of Columbia have similar laws on the books. The case will be heard in the Supreme Court's next term, which begins in October. A decision is expected by the end of June 2026. Colorado enacted the Minor Conversion Therapy Law in 2019 following what the state said was a growing mental health crisis among young people in the state and "mounting evidence" that conversion therapy is tied to increased depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. The law prohibits "any practice or treatment [upon minors] … that attempts or purports to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex." The state joined more than a dozen others in disciplining mental health professionals who practice conversion therapy on minors. Those who are found to engage in this practice face a range of punishments, from fines to a letter of admonition to having their license revoked. The challenge to Colorado's law was brought by Kaley Chiles, a professional counselor who is licensed by the state and uses talk therapy in her practice. A practicing Christian, Chiles works with adults and young people, and many of her clients are also Christian. According to court papers, some of Chiles' clients seek Christian-based counseling "to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with [their] physical body." Chiles' sued the state of Colorado in September 2022 and sought to block enforcement of the state's restriction on conversion therapy. She argued that the measure violates her free speech rights under the First Amendment and censors her conversations with clients based on viewpoint. A federal district court declined to block the law, finding that it regulates professional conduct that incidentally involves speech. The court also found that conversion therapy is "ineffective and harms minors." Chiles' appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which upheld the lower court's decision. The 10th Circuit said that the restriction on conversion therapy implicates speech solely as to the practice of mental health treatment, which can be licensed by the state. The appeals court also concluded that Colorado's law advances its interests in protecting minors and the integrity of the mental health profession. In a filing with the Supreme Court, lawyers for Chiles argued that she does not seek to "cure" her clients of same-sex attractions or change their sexual orientation. Instead, they said she aims to help her clients "with their stated desires and objectives in counseling, which sometimes includes clients seeking to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with one's physical body." "Colorado disagrees with Chiles's beliefs on gender and sexuality. So much so that the State puts itself in Chiles's counseling room, forbidding her from discussing the values she and her clients share," her lawyers wrote in a Supreme Court filing. She is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group. But Colorado officials said that the First Amendment allows states to regulate professional conduct to protect patients from "substandard treatment,"even when that rule "incidentally" burdens speech. They argued that efforts to change a young person's sexual orientation or gender identity are "unsafe and ineffective." "A professional's treatment of her patients and clients is fundamentally different, for First Amendment purposes, from laypersons' interactions with each other," Colorado officials wrote in a filing. "Unlike laypersons, those who choose to practice as health professionals are required, among various other responsibilities, to provide treatment to their patients consistent with their field's standard of care." The state argued that Chiles' claim undercut the ability of states to protect patients and clients from "harmful professional conduct." The Supreme Court has been asked before to jump into the debate over conversion therapy, but had previously declined to intervene. In 2023, the court turned away a First Amendment challenge to a Washington state law that prohibits licensed therapists from performing conversion therapy on patients under the age of 18. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh said then that they would have taken up the appeal from a licensed licensed marriage and family counselor in the state.
