In a definitive blow to states that have restricted so-called “conversion therapy” – counseling those seeking help with same-sex attraction – the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday handed down a decision affirming the freedom of Christian counselors and their minor clients.
The 8-1 ruling strikes down a 2019 Colorado law prohibiting practitioners from conducting “conversion therapy” on patients under 18. It now has implications for the other 22 states that have similar laws on the books.
Kaley Chiles, a licensed mental health counselor who invoked her Christian faith and challenged the law, argued that it violated her First Amendment right of free speech.
? In an 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court holds that Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy,” as applied to petitioner’s talk therapy, violates the First Amendment because it constitutes viewpoint discrimination pic.twitter.com/NkDo4Djsb6
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) March 31, 2026
“Colorado’s law addressing conversion therapy does not just ban physical interventions. In cases like this, it censors speech based on viewpoint,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch on behalf of the Court majority.
“As applied to Ms. Chiles, Colorado’s law regulates the content of her speech and goes further to prescribe what views she may and may not express, discriminating on the basis of viewpoint,” he argued.
The First Amendment, wrote Gorsuch, is a “shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter in the case, accusing her colleagues of opening “a dangerous can of worms” by undermining states’ ability to regulate “medical practices” that “risks grave harm to Americans’ health and well-being.”
The plaintiff’s attorney, James Campbell of the Alliance Defending Freedom, cheered the ruling in a statement as “a significant win for free speech, common sense, and families desperate to help their children.”
Reporting on the rulling, Not the Bee noted, “The LGBT sex cult has banned Christian counselors from helping people who struggle with sexual sin in 23 states. SCOTUS just said that’s unconstitutional.”
