Washington- The Supreme Court has reversed a U.S. 10th Circuit Court decision, holding that Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy in the form of “talk therapy” violates free speech based on viewpoint.

Merriam-Webster defines conversion therapy as “the use of any of various methods (such as aversive stimulation or religious counseling) in an attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or to change a person’s gender identity to correspond to the sex the person was identified as having at birth.”

Oklahoma legislators have repeatedly introduced bills seeking to protect access to conversion therapy and prevent state or local restrictions. The most recent, House Bill 2973, was introduced by Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, in 2022. A similar bill by former Rep. Sally Kern failed in 2015.

The bill, better known as the “Parental and Family Rights in Counseling Protection Act,” would have prohibited “government from restricting certain counseling by a mental health provider or religious advisor” and banned or restricted “gender dysphoria resolution efforts” by a mental health provider or religious advisor.

While those bills failed, the arguments behind them mirror the Constitutional reasoning the Supreme Court has now endorsed.

The “Parental and Family Rights in Counseling Protection Act” was proposed less than a year after the Norman City Council voted unanimously in June 2021 to ban the practice.

In 2019, Colorado adopted a law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in conversion therapy with minors, defining the practice as “any practice or treatment that attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Colorado Christian counselor Kaley Chiles filed suit in federal court seeking a preliminary injunction, stating that the ban violated her First Amendment rights for talk therapy. Both the district court and the 10th Circuit denied Chile’s request, stating that Colorado’s ban simply regulates what licensed therapists are allowed to do in treatment, rather than controlling ideas or viewpoints.

In 2024, Chiles petitioned for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in and in an 8-1 decision Tuesday, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court stated that just because the state’s viewpoint regulation applied only to licensed healthcare professionals did not change the fact that “Ms. Chiles’ speech does not bear a close causal connection to any separately unlawful conduct, and the State’s law trains directly on the content of her speech, permitting some viewpoint but not others.”

Gorsuch wrote that the question presented was narrow: Chiles did not wish to question the substance of Colorado’s law, nor did she take issue with the state’s effort to prohibit physical interventions. Yet the law strikes “at the heart of the First Amendment’s protections for free speech,” by her technique of talk therapy, which she described as “voluntary counseling conversations” with her clients.

Gorsuch said the court has consistently held that laws that regulate speech based on what it is about, or the subject matter, are “presumptively unconstitutional.” The opinion also addressed the “even greater dangers associated with regulations that discriminate based on the speaker’s point of view.”

In a single dissenting opinion, Justice Kentaji Brown said: “[T]here is no right to practice medicine which is not subordinate to the police power of the States. This was true 100 years ago, and it should be true today.”

Jackson said the majority “failed to appreciate the crucial context in which Chiles’ constitutional claims have arisen,” stating that the law regulates medical treatment, conversion therapy, not speech as an abstract idea. She warned that the court’s ruling could limit states’ ability to protect patients from harmful medical practices delivered through speech.

While Norman’s city ordinance prohibiting conversion therapy for minors still makes it illegal, with fines up to $750 or up to 60 days in jail for violations, the Supreme Court ruling could trigger legal challenges.

Though Oklahoma itself does not have a statewide ban, the decision could make passing a statewide ban more difficult.

Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. For more stories by Gaylord News go to GaylordNews. net.