A Christian legal group is urging the US supreme court to overturn a ban on “conversion therapy” on Tuesday in a high-stakes case that could roll back the rights of LGBTQ+ youth across the country.
In Chiles v Salazar, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is representing a woman who objected to a 2019 Colorado law outlawing conversion practices for youth under age 18. The law applies to licensed mental health clinicians who seek to change a patient’s gender identity or sexual orientation, discredited tactics that major medical associations have said are ineffective and harmful.
Colorado is one of more than 20 states in the US that have banned conversion practices, and a ruling in ADF’s favor could make those laws vulnerable to similar challenges.
ADF, a conservative organization behind major anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ cases, is representing Kaley Chiles, a licensed Colorado counselor who is Christian and contends the ban violates her first amendment rights to discuss her faith with patients. Her petition, Colorado’s lawyers argue, is based on a hypothetical infringement on her free speech, since the state has not received a complaint about Chiles nor disciplined her.
ADF says Chiles has begun “censoring herself” with her clients due to fear of the law, and her 2022 lawsuit against the ban was a “pre-enforcement challenge”.
The law does not apply to non-medical professionals, such as religious ministers, and does not regulate the conduct of practitioners like Chiles outside of their work.
Conversion practices are condemned by the American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and other major groups, with experts noting the techniques are linked to increased depression and suicide attempts. The outlawed practices – sometimes called “reparative” therapy or “sexual orientation change efforts” – have historically involved outdated tactics such as electrical shocks but can also take the form of religious counseling or talk therapy aimed at suppressing LGBTQ+ people’s identities and expression.
ADF has referenced several academic experts in its petition to reauthorize conversion practices. But two of those cited scholars, in interviews with the Guardian published Monday, argued that ADF had “profoundly” misrepresented their work.
ADF cited a 2016 paper from renowned sexuality researcher Dr Lisa Diamond and law professor Clifford Rosky, both from the University of Utah, which argued that people’s sexual orientation can naturally shift over time, and that LGBTQ+ rights should be protected regardless of whether people’s sexuality is fluid or fixed.
The paper explicitly condemned conversion practices as “not only ineffective in changing sexual orientation but … psychologically damaging, often resulting in elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality”. But ADF nonetheless cited it after arguing a “growing body of research reveals how critical Chiles’s counseling is”. ADF also cited the work of a deceased researcher, whose family said they were “deeply disturbed” by the “distortion” of his work.
ADF in an earlier statement defended its quotations as “accurate”.
