The Supreme Court on Tuesday, April 1st ruled against a Colorado law restricting licensed mental health professionals from performing voluntary, talk-based “conversion therapy” to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of minors.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority:
We do not doubt that the question of how best to help minors struggling with issues of gender identity or sexual orientation is presently a subject of fierce public debate. But Colorado’s law does not just ban physical interventions. In cases like this, it censors speech based on viewpoint.
The law restricted practitioners from providing treatment that “attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation.” While proponents argue that conversion therapy is a discredited practice, Gorsuch countered that scientific understandings change over time, noting that the First Amendment stands as a shield against enforcing orthodoxy in thought or speech.
