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The Faqs: Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments In Case On Free Speech And Bans On Sexual Reorientation Therapy

What just happened?

On October 7, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a First Amendment challenge to Colorado’s law that prohibits “conversion therapy” for minors.

What is the case about?

In 2019, Colorado passed the Minor Conversion Therapy Law (MCTL), which makes it professional misconduct for licensed mental health practitioners to engage in therapy with minors with the goal to “change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” However, the statute does allow counselors to provide “acceptance, support, and understanding” to help minors undergoing gender transition (i.e., transgenderism).

According to the court documents, Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor and Christian, believes that “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex.” Chiles says many of her clients seek her counsel precisely because they believe that their faith and their relationship with God establish the foundation on which to understand their identity and desires. She contends that when clients voluntarily ask for help aligning their sexual desires or gender identity with Christian convictions, talk therapy should be legally protected.

Colorado is defending the law as a permissible regulation of professional conduct, pointing to what it claims is a medical consensus condemning “conversion therapy” as harmful.

What is the legal question before the court?

The Supreme Court must decide whether Colorado’s law impermissibly censors speech by banning certain therapeutic conversations or whether the law is a valid regulation of professional conduct that only incidentally restricts speech. The central issue is whether the statute is viewpoint-based or content-based, which triggers the strict scrutiny standard, or whether it can survive under a more deferential framework.

The question also to be considered is how NIFLA v. Becerra (2018)—which ruled that speech can still be protected even when uttered by “professionals.”

What was the reaction of the justices during the oral arguments?

During the oral arguments, several key lines of questioning emerged.

Several justices confronted the law’s unequal treatment, noting that it prohibits counseling aimed at reducing same-sex attraction while allowing counseling supporting identity exploration or assisting gender transition. That differential treatment of viewpoints is precisely what First Amendment doctrine typically disallows.

Justice Alito said, “It seems to me . . . your statute dictates opposite results in those two situations” based on “the viewpoint expressed.”

“Looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination,” he added.

When Colorado defended its law as a regulation of professional conduct, the justices asked whether talk therapy is speech, which would require the state to pass stricter constitutional constraints before banning it.

Justice Gorsuch also questioned Colorado’s reliance on medical consensus by using a historical analogy. He asked whether reasoning that bans dissenting talk therapies now could justify suppressing views in the past when medical consensus was out of sync with views held today. He gave the example of how “homosexuality in the 1970s was professionally considered to be a mental health disorder.”

Some justices suggested malpractice, licensing discipline, and informed consent regimes as less restrictive means to address harm claims, rather than categorical bans on certain therapeutic speech.

Why is this case important?

At its core, Chiles v. Salazar is a case about free speech and professional regulation. If the court allows states to ban particular therapies because they disfavor the message, many Christian counselors and their clients—especially young people wanting guidance consistent with their faith—may become silenced by the government. Speech doesn’t become less protected by the Constitution, though, simply because it’s offered in a therapeutic setting.

The reality is that Colorado (and almost two dozen other states) are indeed trying to silence speech they disagree with. That’s why they continually use terms such as “conversion therapy.” This is an umbrella term for treatments based on a school of psychology known as behaviorism, which claims all observable behavior is learned through conditioning rather than internal mental states. This type of secular therapy—which, unfortunately, has been adopted by some Christian groups—often relies on aversion techniques, such as pairing same-sex erotic images with aversive stimuli, electric shocks, ice baths, or nausea-inducing drugs.

That isn’t at all what Christians today are promoting. Chiles and many modern Christian counselors apply a more rightly considered “change-allowing” therapy. This voluntary, collaborative talk therapy is common for a wide array of behavioral struggles, such as pornography, promiscuity, and addictions. Yet in many jurisdictions, same-sex attraction and gender confusion are now the only topics therapists may not help clients reshape or resist. The counselor is required by law to affirm the identity the client brings, even if that’s what is causing the client distress.

These treatments are being banned even though many people find them beneficial to their mental and spiritual health. As Paul Sullins points out, advocates of change-allowing therapy claim high rates of therapeutic benefit: More than 85 percent of youth with gender confusion reportedly choose to remain in their biological sex after therapy, and about two-thirds of same-sex attracted individuals report reduced same-sex attraction.

Bans on such therapy not only constrict the free speech of the therapists, but they also burden the free exercise of religion for clients and counselors. Many who seek change-allowing therapy identify first and foremost with faith commitments, not their sexual attractions, and to prohibit such therapy is to violate their conscience and deny their right to determine how they’ll live out their religious beliefs.

More than 20 states and the District of Columbia have laws banning or limiting “conversion therapy” for minors. A ruling in favor of Chiles could invalidate many of those laws, opening protected space for religiously grounded counseling. In contrast, a ruling for Colorado would further empower states to regulate therapeutic speech. This could ultimately have implications for other forms of moral or faith-based counseling, such as treatments for addiction.

What outcome should we expect?

While the court’s decision is far from certain, the tenor of the questions suggests the justices may treat Colorado’s law as a viewpoint-based speech restriction rather than a permissible health regulation. That would likely require applying the standard of strict scrutiny, which many legal experts believe the Colorado law couldn’t pass.

However, if the court rules against Chiles, it could approve broad regulatory authority over the speech of therapists. Either way, the ruling will reshape how states may treat speech in clinical, pastoral, or religiously informed counseling.