By Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press
Washington (AP) – The Supreme Court will hear the arguments on Tuesday in its last case LGBTQ + rights, weighing Tuesday the constitutionality of prohibitions adopted by almost half of the American states on the practice known as the conversion therapy for children.
The judges hear a trial of a Christian adviser contesting a law of Colorado which prohibits therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. Kaley Chiles, with the support of President Donald Trump’s republican administration, maintains that the law violates his freedom of expression by prohibiting him from providing voluntary and confessional therapy for children.
Colorado, on the other hand, says that the measure simply regulates approved therapists by prohibiting a practice which has been scientifically discredited and linked to serious damage.
The arguments occur months after the conservative majority of the Supreme Court found that states can prohibit health care linked to the transition for young transgender people, a backdrop for LGBTQ rights. The judges should also hear a case on the sports participation of transgender players this term.
The state says that therapy is health care and subject to regulations
Colorado did not sanction anyone under the 2019 law, which exempts religious ministries. State prosecutors say that this always allows any therapist to have large -scale and confessional conversations with young patients on sex and sexuality.
“The only thing the law prohibits therapists from doing is to carry out a treatment that seeks the predetermined result of changing the sexual orientation or the gender identity of a minor because this treatment is dangerous and ineffective,” wrote lawyers for the colorado state.
Therapy is not only discourse, they said – it is the health care that governments are responsible for regulating. The violation of the law includes potential fines of $ 5,000 and a license suspension or even a revocation.
Linda Robertson is a Christian mother of four children from Washington’s state whose son Ryan suffered therapy who promised to change his sexual orientation after he went out around her at the age of 12. The techniques led him to blame himself when it did not work, leaving him ashamed and depressed. He died in 2009, after several suicide attempts and a drug overdose at the age of 20.
“What happened in conversion therapy has devastated Ryan’s link with me and my husband,” she said. “And that absolutely destroyed his confidence that he could never be loved or accepted by God.”
Chiles maintains that his approach is different from the type of conversion therapy formerly associated with practices such as shock therapy decades ago. She said that she believed that “people flourish when they live regularly with the conception of God, including their biological gender”, and she maintains that the evidence of prejudice of her approach is lacking.
Chiles says that Colorado is discriminating because it allows advisers to assert minors who present themselves gay or identify themselves as transgender, but prohibit advice like their own for young patients who may want to change their behavior or their feelings. “We do not say that this advice should be compulsory, but if someone wants advice, he should be able to obtain it,” said one of his lawyers, Jonathan Scruggs.
The Trump administration said that there were first amendment problems with the Colorado law which should make the law submitted to a higher legal standard than few measures adopt.
Similar laws are also faced with judicial disputes
Chiles is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that has appeared frequently in the court in recent years. The group also represented a Christian website designer who does not want to work with same-sex couples and has managed to challenge an anti-discrimination law of Colorado in 2023.
The group’s argument in the conversion therapy case is also based on another 2018 victory: a decision by the Supreme Court noted that California could not force pregnancy centers in anti-abortion crisis as indicated by the State to provide information on abortion. Chiles should also be exempt from this type of state settlement, the group supported.
However, the Supreme Court also concluded that regulations according to which only the “accidentally” load discourse are authorized, and the state argues that the reduction of its law against conversion therapy would reduce the capacity of states to regulate the discredited health care of all children.
The High Court agreed to hear the case after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals de US in Denver confirmed the law. Another court of appeal, the 11th United States Court of Appeal in Atlanta, canceled similar prohibitions in Florida.
Legal quarrels have also continued elsewhere. In Wisconsin, the highest court in the state recently paved the way for the state to enforce its ban. Virginia officials, on the other hand, agreed to relaunch the application of its law within the framework of an agreement with a confessional conservative group which continued.
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