The case, Chiles v Salazar, came before the U.S. Supreme Court after Christian counselor Kaley Chiles challenged a Colorado law banning so-called “conversion therapy.” Like similar laws in other liberal states, it was passed after lobbying from homosexual rights activists who claim they are vulnerable victims of faith-based mental health professionals.
Chiles is represented by religious liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, which has fought and won major landmark cases at the Supreme Court in the past.
During arguments, which lasted about 90 minutes, Chiles’ attorney James Campbell called the law unconstitutional because it prohibits counselors “from helping minors pursue state-disfavored goals on issues of gender and sexuality.”
Defending the state law, Colorado solicitor general Shannon Stevenson claimed the state law bans only one narrow medical treatment, referring to conversion therapy, which she said "carries great risk of harm."
After oral arguments concluded, news outlets including The Associated Press and the Scotus Blog website concluded the justices seemed sympathetic to Chiles and critical of the state law.
Justice Samuel Alito called the law “blatant viewpoint discrimination,” the Scotus Blog story reported.
Other justices, including its most liberal ones as well as right-leaning Amy Coney Barrett, seemed likely to vote to send the case back down to a lower court, Scotus Blog reported.
Jeremy Dys, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, tells AFN the legal debate is not only about free speech but also regulating free speech into state-approved conduct.
"My hope is the Supreme Court recognizes this for what it is: a bald attempt by the state to regulate speech and religious exercise," he says.
Talking about the case on Fox News, former deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo predicted it will be a major ruling from the high court. One key issue is over the right of a state to regulate the practice of medicine.
"The Court just last year, in a case called Skrmetti, reaffirmed that when it said a state could prohibit gender transition medical treatments,” Yoo said. “But a state can't go so far as to use these kinds of regulations to control what people say. Even though the government can say, ‘You can't do certain medical procedures or those kinds of medical procedures,’ they can't say, ‘But you can't speak at all,’ that you're not allowed to have your viewpoint."
Seeming to agree with Chiles’ free speech argument, Yoo said the First Amendment “protects the right” of a therapist such as Chiles to say what she believes during a counseling session.
