BREAKING: Supreme Court rejects Colorado ban on 'conversion therapy' in 8-1 ruling

In an 8-1 ruling on Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected a 2019 Colorado law that prohibited so-called "conversion therapy" for minors, saying that the law conflicted with the First Amendment. The only justice to dissent was Ketanji Brown Jackson.

"Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy, as applied to Ms. Chiles’s talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint, and the lower courts erred by failing to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny," the ruling stated. 

The justices sided with a Christian counselor in the state, Kaley Chiles. The ruling stated, "As applied to Ms. Chiles, Colorado’s law regulates the content of her speech and goes further to prescribe what views she may and may not express, discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. The law permits her to express acceptance and support for clients exploring their identity or undergoing gender transition, but forbids her from saying anything that attempts to change a client’s 'sexual orientation or gender identity,' including efforts to change 'behaviors,' 'gender expressions,' or 'romantic attraction[s].'"

The court’s opinion, penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, noted that Chiles "does not question that Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy has some constitutionally sound applications," and that "She does not take issue with the State’s effort to prohibit what she herself calls 'long-abandoned, aversive' physical interventions."

"Instead, Ms. Chiles stresses that she provides only talk therapy, employing no physical techniques or medications. Yet, she argues, Colorado’s law still applies to her, prescribing what she may say in 'voluntary counseling conversations' with her clients. And because that application of the law strikes at the heart of the First Amendment’s protections for free speech, she contends, it warrants considerably more searching scrutiny than the rational-basis review the Tenth Circuit applied in this case or the intermediate-scrutiny review some other lower courts have employed in cases like hers. We agree."

"As applied here, Colorado’s law does not just regulate the content of Ms. Chiles’s speech. It goes a step further, prescribing what views she may and may not express," the ruling stated, noting that in the cases of potential gay or transgender clients, Chiles may express support and acceptance, "But if a gay or transgender client seeks her counsel in the hope of changing his sexual orientation or gender identity, Ms. Chiles cannot provide it."

Chiles told a federal court that she did not attempt to "convert" her clients, but rather tried to help them "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."

A divided panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals sided against Chiles, saying that the ban regulated conduct, which also involved speech, and therefore only a "rational basis" test was needed for review. The Supreme Court reversed the court’s ruling and sent it back for further review.