The law of colorado on “conversion therapies” is faced with the constitutional test of the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court must hear the arguments on Tuesday in a case that examines whether the advisory services intended for minors confronted with questions of gender identity and sexual orientation are protected by the first amendment.

Kaley Chiles, an approved Christian therapist, says that his conversations with young customers are a form of protected speech. The Government of Colorado, however, considers them as professional conduct which is part of its regulatory power.

Chile lawyers describe it in legal documents as a person who “believes that people flourish when they live in accordance with the design of God, including their biological sex”.

Chiles, whose cabinet is based in Colorado Springs, uses advice “based on faith” to engage in speech therapy with young people who “seek to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, modify their sexual behavior or grow in the experience of harmony with their physical body”, say his lawyers.

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People flank the representative of the Dana Michaelson Jenet State while she speaks when signing two bills on May 31, 2019. One prohibits the use of conversion therapy on the miners of Colorado. (Aaron Ontivieroz/Medianews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

The closely monitored affair relates to a law adopted by Colorado in 2019 which prohibits what it describes as a “conversion therapy”. About two dozen states have implemented similar measures, and the outcome of this case could affect them.

Chile lawyers claim that the law of the state is equivalent to “censorship of points of view”, arguing that “the status of Colorado undeniably reduced it to silence”.

They argue that conversion therapy is too broad a term and that the law exposes therapists like Chiles to thousands of dollars in fines and the revocation of their license if they violate it.

In a statement during the summer, the Attorney General of Colorado, Phil Weiser, defended the law, which, according to the State, only prohibited therapists from carrying out treatments whose predetermined result is to convert the sexual orientation or gender identity of a minor.

“The so-called conversion therapy is an inhuman and abusive practice of which it is widely demonstrated that it harms young people,” said Weiser. “We have an imperative interest in protecting children from this dangerous pseudoscience.”

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Kaley Chiles, Councilor at Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Alliance defending freedom, press release)

The case is not the first to get out of Colorado in recent years and to examine the way in which the first amendment overlaps identity and sexual orientation. The Supreme Court ruled by 6 votes against 3 in June 2023 that Colorado could not force the designer of Lorie Smith websites to create conceptions incompatible with her faith, namely wedding websites for homosexual couples.

Chiles c. Salazar has now become the next cultural contact point in the state. Trump’s Ministry of Justice supports Chiles in this trial, alongside the association of biblical advisers and the Family Research Counsel.

Meanwhile, nearly 200 Congress Democrats and important medical and mental health institutions support the law of Colorado.

A defender of transgender rights participates in a rally before the United States Supreme Court while the judges hear the arguments in a case on the rights to the health of transgender, on December 4, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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Lawyer Kate Anderson of Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative defense group representing Chile in a dispute, told journalists before the pleadings that the case of Colorado websites gave him optimism.

The law on conversion therapy is “another example of Colorado’s attempt to censor speech in a slightly different, but very linked context,” said Anderson. “And we hope that the Supreme Court will once again defend freedom of expression for all.”