The Supreme Court's Dangerous Gamble with LGBTQ+ Youth Lives

The Facts:

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently hearing oral arguments in a case challenging Colorado’s 2019 law that bans conversion therapy for children and teens. Conversion therapy refers to efforts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity through various methods ranging from talk therapy and religious counseling to electrical shocks, pain-inducing aversion therapy, and physical isolation. This practice has been widely discredited by major medical organizations including the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, and American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

More than half of states have banned or restricted conversion therapy for minors since California became the first state to do so in 2012. The case specifically involves Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado Springs who sued state officials arguing that the law violates her First Amendment right to free speech and interferes with her ability to practice counseling according to her religious convictions. She is represented by the conservative religious law firm Alliance Defending Freedom.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser maintains that the law doesn’t prohibit sharing information or viewpoints but regulates a “substandard, discredited practice” that causes real harms including depression, self-hatred, loss of faith, and even suicide. The outcome of this case could have far-reaching implications for similar laws across dozens of other states, with legal experts like Professor Marie-Amélie George warning that a broad ruling against Colorado’s law would jeopardize the constitutionality of all other conversion therapy bans.

Opinion:

This case represents nothing less than a fundamental assault on human dignity and the protection of vulnerable children. The very notion that anyone would defend psychological torture disguised as therapy under the banner of religious freedom or free speech is morally reprehensible and fundamentally un-American. Conversion therapy has been conclusively proven to cause severe psychological harm, increased suicide rates, and lifelong trauma—it is child abuse pure and simple, regardless of the religious packaging it comes in.

What terrifies me most is the potential for this Supreme Court, which has shown increasing hostility toward LGBTQ+ rights in recent years, to prioritize religious extremism over child welfare. The argument that professional conduct regulations violate free speech is a dangerous distortion of constitutional principles—states have always regulated professional standards to protect citizens from harmful practices. Would we allow doctors to perform medically unsound procedures because of “free speech”? Would we permit architects to ignore building codes because of “religious convictions”?

The coordinated effort by Republican attorneys general and conservative Christian groups to reinstate this barbaric practice across multiple states reveals a deeply disturbing agenda that values ideology over children’s lives. We cannot stand idly by while vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth are subjected to practices that medical professionals universally condemn as dangerous and ineffective. Every decent American must raise their voice against this assault on our most fundamental values of compassion, dignity, and the protection of the vulnerable. The soul of our nation is at stake in this decision—will we protect children or sacrifice them on the altar of religious extremism?