{"id":22582,"date":"2026-04-01T21:48:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/supreme-court-ends-colorados-war-on-reality\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T21:48:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:48:38","slug":"supreme-court-ends-colorados-war-on-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/supreme-court-ends-colorados-war-on-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Ends Colorado\u2019s War On Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled in <\/span>Chiles v. Salazar<\/span><\/i>. The basic concept of the Supreme Court ruling was that the state of Colorado was wrong to ban what is called conversion therapy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2019 Colorado law <\/span>prohibited licensed mental health professionals from engaging in conversion therapy with patients under 18 years of age.<\/span> They defined conversion therapy to include any practice or treatment that attempts to change an individual\u2019s sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as any effort to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions toward individuals of the same sex.<\/span><\/p>\n

That same law allowed counselors to provide \u201cacceptance, support, and understanding for identity exploration and development,\u201d and to assist persons \u201cundergoing gender transition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, the Colorado law said that if a kid comes to you with gender confusion, you are not allowed to say, \u201cBoys are boys and girls are girls. Let\u2019s help you be more comfortable in your body.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If a boy says, \u201cI\u2019m a girl, \u201cyou have to affirm him. And if you don\u2019t affirm him, you\u2019re engaged in conversion therapy, and you can be prosecuted under the law in the state of Colorado.<\/span><\/p>\n

If a kid comes to you and says, \u201cListen, I\u2019m confused about my feelings of sexual attraction,\u201d you\u2019re not allowed to talk that through and say, \u201cYou know what? You\u2019re 14 years old. A lot of people are confused about sexual attraction at 14 years old. You\u2019re being hit by hormones that you\u2019ve never experienced before, and you really don\u2019t have any sort of clear line as to how to live your life, so let\u2019s talk this thing through.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"DailyWire+\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That might be conversion therapy, because that could be construed as an attempt to change behavior, or eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction toward individuals of the same sex.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, you\u2019re supposed to just give that kid a Pride flag and tell them to get out there and march.<\/span><\/p>\n

The plaintiff in this case, Kelly Chiles, holds a master\u2019s degree in clinical mental health and a state counseling license in Colorado.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the Supreme Court, Chiles doesn\u2019t start counseling with any predetermined goals. Instead, she sits down with clients, discusses their goals, and then formulates methods of counseling that will most benefit them, seeking throughout to respect their client\u2019s fundamental right of self-determination, matters of sexuality and gender. The clients sometimes have different agendas, according to the Supreme Court; some are perfectly happy being gay or lesbian or transgender identifying, and others want to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, or change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with their bodies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under Colorado law, those last people are just plumb out of luck. There\u2019s nothing they can do. Because if you, for example, are a person who has a fetish and you don\u2019t want to have that fetish anymore, according to Colorado law, you are not allowed as a therapist to try to change an individual\u2019s behaviors regarding sexual or romantic attraction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who is not a strict textualist when it comes to these matters, wrote the opinion, and his basic opinion is pretty simple: The First Amendment allows therapists to say what they want to say during therapy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The only person who voted in dissent was, of course \u2014 wait for it \u2014 Ketanji Brown Jackson, the dumbest person on the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is saying a lot because Sonia Sotomayor is also on the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gorsuch wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Consistent with the First Amendment\u2019s jealous protections for the individual\u2019s right to think and speak freely, this Court has long held that laws regulating speech based on its subject matter or \u201ccommunicative content\u201d are \u201cpresumptively unconstitutional.\u201d \u2026 We have recognized, as well, the even greater dangers associated with regulations that discriminate based on the speaker\u2019s point of view.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the big problem here is that it\u2019s not just that Colorado is putting regulations on speech; those regulations on speech are content-dependent. Colorado says you can say these things that we agree with, but you cannot say these things with which we disagree.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gorsuch continued:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

While the First Amendment protects many and varied forms of expression, the spoken word is perhaps the quintessential form of protected speech. And that is exactly the kind of expression in which Ms. Chiles seeks to engage. As a talk therapist, all Ms. Chiles does is speak with clients; she does not prescribe medication, use medical devices, or employ any physical methods. \u2026<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Consider, too, where the State and dissent\u2019s logic leads. Not long ago, many medical experts and organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, considered homosexuality a mental disorder. On the view Colorado and the dissent advance, a law adopted during that era prohibiting counselors from engaging in the \u201csubstandard care\u201d of affirming their clients\u2019 homosexuality would have been subject to only rational-basis or intermediate-scrutiny review\u2014and likely upheld. Today, tomorrow, and forever, too, any professional speech that deviates from \u201ccurrent beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments\u201d could be silenced with relative ease.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the court is saying, \u201cIf Colorado is suggesting that a state can determine what is the best course of care with regard to opinions on open matters of gender and sexuality, and then mandate that sort of stuff on subject matter basis, that is violation of free speech.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The court goes out of its way to really slap Jackson. That last statement \u2014 \u201cToday, tomorrow, and forever, too, any professional speech that deviates from \u2018current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments\u2019 could be silenced with relative ease,\u201d is followed by this: \u201cIt is a consequence Colorado freely acknowledges. And one the dissent embraces.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The opinion then cites <\/span>Buck v. Bell<\/span><\/i>. That is a scathing rebuttal to Jackson, because <\/span>Buck v. Bell<\/span><\/i> was the case that suggested that you had the ability under the law to sexually sterilize inmates of institutions, because that was the prevailing science of the time. Jackson has said that she <\/span>liked<\/span><\/i> that law.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jackson said in the <\/span>Chiles <\/span><\/i>case that Colorado was simply \u201crestricting a dangerous therapy modality,\u201d adding that the court\u2019s opinion was \u201cunprincipled and unworkable.\u201d She followed with a long statement about how wonderful the gender orientation of left-wing philosophy is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ketanji Brown Jackson\u2019s dissent is a reminder that if the Left had complete control over the mechanisms of government, it would simply regulate into law all of the most specious and idiotic views about science.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without President Trump as president, we were super-close to that world, because President Trump is responsible for several selections on the Supreme Court. In this case, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor ruled with the majority.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But if there were a bunch of Democratic appointees on the court, is that how this would have gone?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled in Chiles v. Salazar. The basic concept of the Supreme Court ruling was that the state of Colorado was wrong to ban what is called conversion therapy.\u00a0 The 2019 Colorado law prohibited licensed mental health professionals from engaging in conversion therapy with patients under 18 years of age. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-current-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}