Any law, including a Colorado law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in talk therapy with minors, that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an “egregious assault” on First Amendment protections, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled March 31.
“The First Amendment’s protections extend to licensed professionals much as they do to everyone else,” the court said in an 8-1 decision (Chiles v. Salazar) written by Justice Neil Gorsuch. It added later that the First Amendment relies “on a simple truth: The people lose whenever the government transforms prevailing opinion into enforced conformity.”
The court noted that its decision addressed the law only as it applies to talk therapy, not physical interventions or medications.
In 2019, Colorado adopted a law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in conversion therapy with minors.
The term “conversion therapy” may evoke physical techniques such as “electric shock” therapy aimed at changing an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy reaches further, the court noted, forbidding any practice or treatment that attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The law forbids any effort to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex. At the same time, the law allows counselors to engage in practices that provide acceptance, support, and...
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