U.S. Supreme Court’s “Conversion Therapy” Decision Harms LGBTQ+ People, But Also Our Nation’s Healthcare

U.S. Supreme Court

The. U.S. Supreme Court has sided with a Christian therapist in Colorado who sued the state because she said her First Amendment freedom of speech was being denied by a state law which banned any kind of so-called “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ minors.  In an 8-1 decision in the case of Chiles v. Salazar, the Court decided that “Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”

This decision is perhaps the most frightening and damaging LGBTQ+ decision issued by the current Supreme Court.  “Conversion therapy” has been repeatedly and consistently repudiated by mental health and medical professionals not only because it is ineffective, but because it is harmful to individuals who undergo such therapy, leading to severe psychological problems that have at times have resulted in suicide. Each state has the right to regulate health and medical practices administered by professionals, and Colorado’s law was designed to protect its citizens from dangerous interventions.

This decision can have wide repercussions as roughly 23 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico outlaw “conversion therapy.”

As Bondings 2.0 reported in a September 2025 blog post entitled “U.S. Bishops’ Conference and Lay Catholics On Opposite Sides of Conversion Therapy Case,” the hierarchy and several lay Catholic groups had submitted amicus briefs to the Court, with the bishops siding with the Christian therapist and the lay groups siding with protecting LGBTQ+ minors. Two Catholic LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, New Ways Ministry and DignityUSA, were on the side of the lay groups when they signed onto a“Brief amici curiae of Religious Organizations.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

The sole dissenting voice in the Chiles v. Salazar decision was Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the newest member of the Court.  The case involved highly legally technical arguments about free speech, but Justice Jackson cut through the subtleties by pointing out at the very first sentence of her opinion a simple fact:

“'[T]here is no right to practice medicine which is not subordinate to the police power of the States.’ Lambert v. Yellowley, 272 U. S. 581, 596 (1926). This was true 100 yearsago, and it should be true today.”

She makes an important distinction that the Colorado law does not restrict speech, but practice: “[I]t is obvious that the [Colorado law] is regulating professional conduct insofar as it prohibits providing a particular therapy.”

But, from a Catholic point of view, Justice Brown’s most powerful argument is that the nation’s jurisprudence on the First Amendment “does not treat speech as existing in a vacuum” and that “the State’s power to regulate speech depends upon the context in which the regulation of speech occurs.”   In other words, this case can not be decided without taking into account the damage to individuals which will occur if therapists are allowed to practice “conversion therapy.” We must consider the extreme harm that such practices have on vulnerable individuals.  Catholic values and principles require such consideration.

Justice Brown predicts that the results of this decision will be “catastrophic,” affecting not only LGBTQ+ youth, but the wider cause of the State’s ability to regulate health care.  As she explained:

“. . . to put it bluntly, the Court could be ushering in an era of unprofessional and unsafe medical care administered by effectively unsupervised healthcare providers. A state license used to mean something to the patients who entrust their care to licensed professionals—i.e., that the person iscertified to be one who provides treatments that are consistent with the standard of care.

“That stops today.”

She goes onto explain:

“For the first time, the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment to bless a risk of therapeutic harm to children by limiting the State’s ability to regulate medical providers who treat patients with speech. What’s next? In the worst-case scenario, our medical system unravels as various licensed healthcare professionals—talk therapists, psychiatrists, and presumably anyone elsewho claims to utilize speech when administering treatments to patients—start broadly wielding their newfound constitutional right to provide substandard medical care.”

Justice Brown concludes by saying that the majority decision in this case “ultimately risks grave harm to Americans’ healthand wellbeing.”

Kudos to Justice Brown for standing up for not only LGBTQ+ youth, but for protecting our nation’s healthcare, which is already under attack in so many ways from the current presidential administration.

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, April 1, 2026