Washington – The Supreme Court considers on Tuesday a challenge of freedom of expression to a Colorado Law that prohibits conversion therapy addressed to young people by questioning their sexual orientations or gender identities in a case that probably has national implications.
The ruling could affect more than 20 states that have similar prohibitions and ask new questions about other long -standing state medical care regulations.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority that often supports claims for conservative expression, will hear oral arguments in a case presented by Kaley Chiles, a Christian therapist, who says that the 2019 law violates his rights of freedom of expression under the first amendment of the Constitution.
Conversion therapy, favored by some religious conservatives, seeks to encourage homosexual or lesbian minors to identify as heterosexual and transgender children to identify themselves as gender identities assigned to them at birth. Colorado prohibits the practice of licensed therapists, not for religious or family entities.
In question, it is whether such prohibitions regulate the conduct in the same way as the regulations that apply to medical care providers, as the State argues, or the speech, as chiles maintains. Chiles says he only speaks therapy.
The Supreme Court, in main cases, has supported LGBTQ rights, legalizing same -sex marriage in 2015 and deciding five years after a federal law that prohibits labor discrimination applies to gay and transgender people.
But in another case of cases, the Court has supported freedom of expression and the rights of religious expression when they conflict with the laws against discrimination destined to protect LGBTQ people.
The court supported a challenge of religious rights this year to the policy of a Maryland school district to present books with LGBTQ themes in primary schools. He also delivered an important loss to the defenders of transgender rights by failing that states could prohibit gender transition care for minors.
The attorney general of Colorado, Phil Weiser, a Democrat, said in the judicial documents that a ruling against the State would impose not only the prohibitions of conversion therapy, but also other medical care treatments that experts say they are insecure or ineffective.
“For centuries, states have regulated professional medical care to protect patients from lower quality treatment. Throughout that time, the first amendment has never banned the ability of states to prohibit poor care, regardless of whether it is carried out through words,” he wrote.
Chiles, represented by the alliance of the conservative Christian group that defends freedom, responded in its judicial documents that therapy is “vital speech that helps young people to better understand themselves.”
The State seeks to “control what these children believe about themselves and who can become,” said the lawyers.
Chile lawyers cite a ruling from the 2018 Supreme Court in which the conservative majority supported a challenge of freedom of expression to a California law that requires that anti -abortion pregnancy centers notify customers about where abortion services can be obtained.
The court may not issue a definitive decision on conversion therapy prohibitions; It could focus more closely on whether the lower courts confirmed the prohibition carried out the correct legal analysis.
If the law violates the speech, a closer look should be given under the first amendment, a form of review known as “strict scrutiny”, that the judges could ask the lower courts to do it instead of doing so. Under that approach, the judges consider whether government action that violates freedom of expression serves a convincing interest and was “limited” to meet that goal.
The Trump administration presented a brief urging the court to determine that the law loads the speech and at the same time says that a ruling in favor of Chiles will not pour state regulations in other areas.
