Conversion Therapy Ruling Tests Free Speech Limits
Earlier this week, the majority-conservative Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Colorado’s laws barring therapists from talking to minor clients about “gay conversion” had stepped over lines insisting on freedom of speech.
Colorado’s 2019 law, which targeted “conversion therapy,” reached deep into the conversations between mental health counselors and their clients under age 18. Therapists could face discipline or fines for saying things to change their clients’ “behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions toward individuals of the same sex.”
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion for the court, said therapists can “affirm a client’s sexual orientation,” but cannot be prohibited “from speaking in any way that helps a client ‘change’ his sexual attractions or behaviors.” He called it “viewpoint discrimination,” making a distinction between information about medical treatment and treatments themselves.
Clearly, “gay conversion” is promoted as good social and medical policy by the political right.
Liberals Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan concurred about the overreach of the law but warned that the decision “enables ‘speech on only one side’ — the State’s preferred side — of an ideologically charged issue.” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson objected because the health of minors will be adversely affected.
Gay conversion therapy has been widely discredited as ineffective and possibly harmful by medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The case goes back to a lower court for review.
Not Free Speech for All
So, how does this support for free speech affect issues when conservatives oppose them?
But the same speech protections apparently do not apply to medical treatments that conservatives oppose. Among the various states that have adopted laws restricting abortion, for example, several have outlawed providing information about abortions or ways to obtain medical treatments out of state. The feds have joined states in barring money for Planned Parenthood, among other clinics, because they include advice as well as treatments.
While providing general information about euthanasia often is seen as protected free speech, state and federal laws say assisting, advising, or encouraging suicide is criminal behavior in most states. The federal Assisted Suicide Ban Act restricts funding for promoting assisted suicide.
Laws abound surrounding “quack medicine” towards preventing deceptive promotion as well as fraud and illegal practice, particularly when promoting unproven treatments as effective for diagnosing or curing diseases. But it is perfectly okay in this version of free speech to appoint people who know nothing about vaccine safety to set policy that violates every teaching of science and medicine.
Obviously, the political right seeks bans on referring to – not just hiring and promotion actions — diversity, equity and inclusion issues in schools and universities, in libraries and museums, or to issues of fairness in private sector hiring. For a state legislature to insist on specific limitations on college curriculum is specifically to abridge freedom of speech as well as the academic freedoms to explore disparate theories in a way that makes universities essential.
The Court’s argument is that it only rules on specific cases that make it to its review. But the Court picks its cases understanding that its guidance has wider implications. The court majority would say this case warns about “aggressive” attack on conservative therapist.
The rest of us might see the decision as picking just whose free speech is protected.
Frequently Asked Questions On this Conversion Therapy Ruling
Q: What did the Supreme Court rule about conversion therapy?
A: The Court ruled that Colorado’s law restricting what therapists can say to minors about changing sexual orientation violated free speech protections.
Q: Is conversion therapy considered safe or effective?
A: Major medical organizations say conversion therapy is ineffective and can be harmful.
Q: Why is this ruling controversial?
A: Critics argue it creates inconsistencies in how free speech is protected, especially compared to restrictions on other medical topics.
Q: What happens next in the case?
A: The case returns to a lower court for further review based on the Supreme Court’s guidance.
Trump’s War with Iran
As we saw, Donald Trump’s choice for a national television address Wednesday night on the war with Iran clearly fell flat. It neither won new supporters nor did it clarify the murkiness before us in exiting from conflict that still lacks immediate purpose.
Since the speech:
–The strategic outlook remained dicey. Though Trump talked about having achieved all his goals, we face more fighting with promises to bomb Iran into the “stone ages” (technically history says there were three) towards no apparent end. It seemed as likely as not that Trump would greenlight sending in the Marines gathered in the region. The speech did nothing to clarify the gap between military success and diplomatic ends and it underscored that Iran would have its own say about when conflict ends. Trump did nothing to court the very allies he now expects to jump in to clear the Strait of Hormuz where Iran halted shipping in response to his preemptive attack.
–Militarily, the U.S. hit bridges and vowed to hit utilities and desalination plants as bombing resumed. Two U.S. warplanes crashed after being hit, including a F15E fighter jet, with a rescue under fire of one airman and another still missing. We saw mixed reports about Iran’s ability to recover from strikes on mobile missile launchers, raising questions about U.S. claims of destruction and wonder about whether Iran has the ability to hide its weapons and targeting equipment.
–The economic roiling continues, Financial futures markets and the general markets continued their slide and oil worries increased.
–Unaddressed entirely ware Israel’s continuing conflicts, including an apparent desire to occupy or annex a 25-mile stretch of Lebanon.
–Politically, Trump’s speech did nothing to widen support, and, indeed, drew attention to his own image as an aging isolationist cut off from being able to take in information as needed.
It made us wonder why the speech was needed at all. It neither formally extended nor ended the war, and it just made for more worry about uncertainty.
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