Overview
- The Supreme Court, in an 8–1 ruling on Tuesday, said Colorado’s ban violates the First Amendment when applied to counselors who use only talk therapy and sent the case back to the lower courts.
- Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the law censors viewpoint by allowing affirming counseling but barring counseling that seeks change, and he rejected treating talk therapy as mere medical conduct.
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, warning the ruling weakens states’ power to regulate healthcare delivered through speech and could invite unsafe, unregulated practices.
- Legal analysts and states expect fresh challenges to conversion-therapy bans in more than two dozen states, and two liberal justices concurred to note that viewpoint-neutral rules in medical settings could still survive.
- Major medical groups call conversion therapy ineffective and linked to higher rates of depression and suicide in LGBTQ youth, while Colorado’s 2019 law targeted licensed providers, carried fines and license penalties, exempted religious ministry, and had not been enforced.