- Feb 5, 2002
- 190,079
- 70,323
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
Recently, a landmark ruling on the constitutionality of so-called “conversion therapy” bans was handed down, sending shock waves throughout the country’s mental health community.
With the help of religious-liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, Colorado licensed counselor Kaley Chiles filed suit in federal court over a 2019 state law prohibiting licensed therapists from assisting clients under the age of eighteen from seeking voluntary counseling to change or reduce unwanted same-sex attractions or gender identity conflicts. After losing in the District and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court took up her case last October.
The primary question the high court needed to decide was whether counseling should be considered medical conduct subject to professional regulation or speech protected by the First Amendment. Colorado’s statute allows a counselor to facilitate acceptance and support for a minor’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans (LGBT) identity exploration and development, but makes illegal the view that same-sex attractions or gender identity expressions are fluid and subject to change, claiming that such therapeutic efforts are ineffective, harmful, and fall outside of the so-called medical consensus.
Justice Neil Gorsuch — joined by seven of the eight other justices — addressed this in his majority opinion: Colorado’s law regulates the content of her speech and goes further to prescribe what views she may and may not express. Her speech does not become “conduct” just because a government says so or because it may be described as a “treatment” or “therapeutic modality.” The First Amendment is no word game, and “the exercise of constitutional rights” cannot be circumscribed by mere labels.”
Even two of the Court’s liberal justices, Sotomayor and Kagan, joined the 8-1 majority opinion, criticizing the lone dissent, Justice Ketanji Jackson, for “reimagining” settled First Amendment law in what Justice Kagan described as a “textbook” viewpoint discrimination case. Jackson opined: “Conversion-therapy efforts have historically included aversive therapeutic modalities,” including “inducing nausea, vomiting, or paralysis in patients or subjecting them to severe electric shocks,” although they have “fallen out of fashion” in favor of talk therapy.
Bait and switch: Separating fact from fiction
Continued below.
www.christianpost.com
With the help of religious-liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, Colorado licensed counselor Kaley Chiles filed suit in federal court over a 2019 state law prohibiting licensed therapists from assisting clients under the age of eighteen from seeking voluntary counseling to change or reduce unwanted same-sex attractions or gender identity conflicts. After losing in the District and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court took up her case last October.
The primary question the high court needed to decide was whether counseling should be considered medical conduct subject to professional regulation or speech protected by the First Amendment. Colorado’s statute allows a counselor to facilitate acceptance and support for a minor’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans (LGBT) identity exploration and development, but makes illegal the view that same-sex attractions or gender identity expressions are fluid and subject to change, claiming that such therapeutic efforts are ineffective, harmful, and fall outside of the so-called medical consensus.
Justice Neil Gorsuch — joined by seven of the eight other justices — addressed this in his majority opinion: Colorado’s law regulates the content of her speech and goes further to prescribe what views she may and may not express. Her speech does not become “conduct” just because a government says so or because it may be described as a “treatment” or “therapeutic modality.” The First Amendment is no word game, and “the exercise of constitutional rights” cannot be circumscribed by mere labels.”
Even two of the Court’s liberal justices, Sotomayor and Kagan, joined the 8-1 majority opinion, criticizing the lone dissent, Justice Ketanji Jackson, for “reimagining” settled First Amendment law in what Justice Kagan described as a “textbook” viewpoint discrimination case. Jackson opined: “Conversion-therapy efforts have historically included aversive therapeutic modalities,” including “inducing nausea, vomiting, or paralysis in patients or subjecting them to severe electric shocks,” although they have “fallen out of fashion” in favor of talk therapy.
Bait and switch: Separating fact from fiction
Continued below.
Is the war on ‘conversion therapy’ over?
If we approach one another honestly and compassionately, we can realize that respect and love for each other has room for disagreement
www.christianpost.com
