SCOTUS Takes Case of Christian Counselor Banned From Helping Clients Find ‘God-Given’ Identity

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has agreed to hear the case of a Christian therapist who is challenging Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” that targets conversations meant to help minor clients accept their God-given gender and sexuality.

As CBN News previously reported, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a non-profit legal group, is representing Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado.

ADF petitioned the high court in November to hear Chiles’ case after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld Colorado’s Minor Conversion Therapy Law which “prohibits mental health professionals from providing ‘conversion therapy’ to minor clients.”  

A counselor who violates Colorado’s Minor Conversion Therapy Law faces fines of up to $5,000 per violation, suspension from practice, and, in some cases, revocation of the counselor’s license.

According to ADF, many of Chiles’ clients seek her counsel because they share her Christian worldview and faith-based values.

“These clients believe their lives will be more fulfilling if they are aligned with the teachings of their faith,” reads a press statement. “Yet Colorado law censors Chiles from speaking words her clients want to hear because the government does not like the view she expresses.”

Their lawsuit alleges that while Colorado’s law prohibits counselors from encouraging clients to accept their bodies, it “allows counseling conversations that aim to steer young people toward a gender identity different than the client’s sex.”

“Such restrictions have ‘left some clinical staff fearful’ of ‘providing professional support’ to young people at all,” reads the petition. “That result leaves detransitioners — those who adopted a transgender identity but now identify with their biological sex — with no counseling support whatsoever in much of the United States.”  

Colorado is among roughly half the states that ban people from finding freedom from gender dysphoria or unwanted same-sex attraction.

Colorado Attorney General Philip J. Weiser has criticized so-called “conversion therapy.”

“States have long regulated medical practices to protect patients from harmful professional conduct,” he said in a statement. “Colorado’s law protecting young people from unscientific and cruel gay conversion therapy practices is humane, smart, and appropriate.”

Chiles originally filed a lawsuit challenging the law, arguing that it violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech and Free Exercise clauses.

ADF CEO Kristen Waggoner said state officials have “no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors.”
 
“Colorado’s law prohibits what’s best for these children and sends a clear message: the only option for children struggling with these issues is to give them dangerous and experimental drugs and surgery that will make them lifelong patients,” stated Waggoner.

In 2023, to Supreme Court declined to hear a similar case challenging Washington state’s conversion therapy law. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Brett Kavanaugh publicly dissented from the court’s decision to not take up that case. 

“There is fierce debate over how best to help minors with gender dysphoria,” Thomas wrote at the time. 

The high court recently heard arguments in a Tennessee case over whether the state’s ban on experimental transgender procedures on minors violates the Constitution. They have not issued a decision yet. 

The justices are expected to hear Chiles’ case during their next term, which begins in October.

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