The Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday on questions of sexuality and government regulation. Once again, a case pits conservative Christian groups against the LGBTQ community.
At issue in the case is conversion therapy. It's generally defined as the treatment used to cure a person's attraction to the same sex; in other words, to make a gay person straight, and to cure a person's desire to change their gender identity by making them comfortable with their gender at birth.
Every major medical organization from the American Medical Association to the American Psychological Association has repudiated the practice, finding that it doesn't work, and instead leads to deep depression, and suicidal thoughts in minors. As a result of these findings, half of states have banned the practice for those under age 18.
Jessica Ritter is one of many former conversion therapy patients who now opposes the treatment. Raised in a devout Christian family, she says her first kiss was with another girl, and that she was devastated when the relationship ended due to the belief that she would go to hell — so devastated that she eagerly embraced conversion therapy.
"You're broken, and then then you're doing all the things that they're telling you to do, and it's not working," she says, adding that it took her years to recover.
The conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, along with Colorado therapist Kaley Chiles, are challenging the ban on conversion therapy, contending that it violates a therapist's right of free speech in talk therapy.
"I want to be able to operate genuinely and create therapeutic relationships that are not hindered by the values and position of our state," Chiles says, adding that for now she has to turn away clients who want conversion therapy.
Representing Chiles at the Supreme Court Tuesday, lawyer James Campbell will tell the Justices that what Chiles does is purely talk therapy, and thus that it is protected by the Constitution's free speech guarantee.
"The state can determine who is qualified to be a licensed counselor. It can determine that they have the right education, that they have sufficient experience," he says. "But what the state can't do is come in and say, 'You can have a conversation about a topic, but not if you're going to talk about it from this perspective.'" That, he argues is "just blatant viewpoint discrimination."
Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser counters that the state law only applies to minors and it allows anyone of any age to seek conversion therapy counseling from religious organizations without being subject to state licensing laws. But, he adds, states are entitled to require licensed therapists and other medical professionals to abide by established standards of medical care.
"If you take away the ability of states to protect patients from substandard care, then you're opening the door to all sorts of discredited treatments," he says.
Each side in this debate has to deal with an embarrassing fact.
Briefs filed by those endorsing conversion therapy rely heavily on the Cass Review, a study commissioned by the Britain's state-run National Health Service, which found just last year that there was insufficient evidence to justify transgender affirming care for minors. Notably, the Cass Review reached a very different conclusion when it came to conversion therapy, condemning it as being unsupported by science and professional medical guidance.
As for Colorado's position, its opponents note that major medical associations have not always been right. Indeed, the American Psychiatric Association actually listed homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1973.
Attorney General Weiser replies that medical science evolves over time.
"There were times when we didn't know that smoking cigarettes, three packs a day, caused cancer. But now that we know it does, it's wrong for a doctor to tell people to smoke cigarettes…that would be substandard care, just like conversion practices are substandard care."
A decision in the case, Chiles v. Salazar, is expected by summer.
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