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Supreme Court Takes Up Colorado Conversion Therapy Ban in Major Free-Speech Test

The justices will weigh whether state limits on licensed therapists’ efforts to change minors’ identity regulate medical conduct or censor speech.

Overview

  • Oral arguments on Tuesday in Chiles v. Salazar challenge Colorado’s 2019 law barring licensed mental-health providers from performing conversion therapy on minors.
  • Counselor Kaley Chiles, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, argues the ban violates her First Amendment rights, and the Trump administration will support her position at argument.
  • Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser defends the statute as a patient-protection rule governing professional standards for licensed providers rather than a restriction on ideas or religious ministry.
  • Lower courts upheld the law, and a circuit split over whether conversion therapy is regulable conduct or protected speech sets up a ruling that could affect bans in 23 states and Washington, D.C.
  • Major medical organizations oppose conversion therapy as ineffective and harmful, and research groups and international bodies, including the U.N., have documented widespread harms.