In a near-unanimous 8-1 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a Christian counselor who contended that a Colorado law violated her free speech by restricting her from talking to minors who sought help in overcoming same-sex attraction or gender confusion. In Chiles v. Salazar, the Court ruled Colorado’s ban on LGBTQ+ conversion therapy for young people infringes on the free speech rights of Ms. Chiles and struck down most applications of the law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in conversion therapy for minors. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said Colorado’s law goes beyond regulating “just . . . the content of Ms. Chiles’s speech” by telling her “what views she may or may not express.” Justice Gorsuch continued: “For a client ‘undergoing gender transition,’ Ms. Chiles may likewise offer words of ‘[a]ssistance.’ §12–245–202(3.5)(b)(II). 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.”
Justice Kagan, while joining the majority opinion, wrote a concurrence stating that the Colorado law may have survived constitutional scrutiny had it been content-neutral and not silenced one side of the conversion-therapy debate. Kagan, joined by Justice Sotomayor, noted “[t]he law distinguishes between two opposed sets of ideas—the one resisting, the other reflecting, the State’s own view of how to speak with minors about sexual orientation and gender identity.” “Or said just a bit differently, the law draws a line based on the speaker’s opinion or perspective, and thus enables speech on only one side—the State’s preferred side—of an ideologically charged issue,” she added. “Once again, because the State has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, the constitutional issue is straightforward.”
The Court sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to apply “strict scrutiny” to determine if Colorado’s ban on speech was narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest, a demanding standard that few laws can pass.
