Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R-AZ) is celebrating a U.S. Supreme Court decision he helped support, after the nation's highest court struck down a Colorado law banning conversion therapy for minors in an 8-1 ruling handed down Tuesday.
Senate President Petersen, who joined an amicus brief backing therapist Kaley Chiles in the case, called the decision "another huge win for the First Amendment in America" on X following the ruling.
Adding: "No state may prohibit the free speech of one of its citizens by passing an unconstitutional law in an attempt to justify its censorship."
At the center of the case is Chiles, a Colorado-licensed clinical mental health counselor who challenged her state's 2019 law prohibiting licensed therapists from practicing conversion therapy on minors.
NBC reported the law defined the banned practice broadly, covering any treatment aimed at changing a client's sexual orientation, gender identity, or same-sex attractions.
Current Argument
Chiles argued the law violated her First Amendment rights by restricting what she could discuss with clients based on the viewpoint of that speech.
The Supreme Court agreed, 8-1. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said the First Amendment "stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech," and that Colorado's law amounted to viewpoint-based censorship rather than a permissible regulation of professional conduct.
The ruling is expected to have wide-reaching consequences. More than 20 states have similar conversion therapy bans on the books, all of which could now face legal challenges.
Therefore, the decision may also affect other areas of medical regulation where treatment involves speech.
Medical Warnings
The only justice to side with Colorado, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, warned the ruling could open the door to "unprofessional and unsafe medical care" by limiting states' ability to regulate certain speech-based treatments.
She then raised concerns about the potential impact on informed consent requirements in medical practice.
Currently, conversion therapy is broadly condemned by major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, which consider it ineffective and potentially harmful.
Both derive from research linking it to increased suicide risk among those subjected to it, sparking worry within communities.
The case will now return to the lower courts for further proceedings.
