Supreme Court stirs free speech debate with conversion therapy ruling

The Supreme Court’s ruling last week against bans on conversion therapy is stirring debate around free speech, with critics pointing to inconsistencies in the standard applied to bans on abortion and drag shows. 

In its ruling on Colorado’s 2019 ban on conversion therapy in the case of Chiles v. Salazar, the Supreme Court found that a lower court had “erred” in upholding it because the law “regulates speech based on viewpoint.” 

“A law regulating the content of speech cannot avoid searching First Amendment review just because it mostly regulates non-expressive conduct. What matters is whether, in fact, the law regulates speech in the case at hand,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the court’s majority opinion, with only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. 

The court did not rule on the actual constitutionality of Colorado’s ban; it sent the case back to lower courts and asked that a higher standard be applied to the law. The core question is whether conversion therapy is something that a government can regulate, like it does for health care. 

The scope of the ruling is quite narrow, which according to legal experts is why it garnered such broad support from the bench. Seth Chandler, professor of law at the University of Houston, argued that the ruling was ultimately the right decision based purely on whether it violated the First Amendment. 

“Colorado took sides, where it said it’s fine with us if you want to engage in gender-affirming speech, but we are going to prohibit you from engaging in ‘rethinking your sexuality’ speech,” Chandler said.  

“That enabled eight of the justices to find that that........

© The Hill