Elie Mystal: The Supreme Court Wants to Convert Your Kids

[Nevilledog]

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/supreme-court-conversion-therapy/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/2siho

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a case about the legality of “conversion therapy.” As ever with this Supreme Court, the forces of bigotry disguised as Christianity held a 6-3 advantage over law and science. The six Republicans on the court are likely to endorse this form of child abuse as an extension of “free speech.” The only open question is whether they go full RFK Jr. in their war against medical expertise.

Conservatives and Republicans would like you to think of this case as a free speech issue. In 2019, Colorado became one of the more than 20 states to ban the practice of conversion therapy by licensed medical professionals seeing patients under the age of 18. Kaley Chiles, a licensed counsellor who for some reason thinks MAGA Jesus wants her to torture LGBTQ children, objected. The Alliance Defending Freedom—a conservative law firm that has made it its mission to legalize bigotry in the name of religious freedom—took up her case, arguing that Colorado violated Chiles’s First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of her religion.

If you stop the inquiry there, Chiles has the contours of a compelling case. Therapists talk to people, and we for sure don’t want the government telling therapists what they can or cannot talk about. Right? It would be awful if a professional therapist was barred from talking about available medical treatments, or if a state placed, I don’t know, a “bounty” on the head of a professional who helped a patient receive medical treatment in a state willing to provide it. Right?

Chiles has what looks like a good case—if you skip over the part that the bigots would have you overlook: She is licensed by the state of Colorado. The conversion therapy ban does not apply to, say, priests. It does not apply to parents. It does not apply to any random individual who wants to strap on a sandwich board and preach the gospel of bigotry. It applies only to people who have received a professional license from Colorado and have thus been given the imprimatur of authority and expertise by the state government. Colorado bans conversion therapy from being discussed by this subset of people, and no one else.

*snip*

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Conversion therapy is torture

[Celerity]

2. kick