The Supreme Court on Dec. 11 declined to hear a challenge to a law in Washington state that protects minors from conversion therapy.
“This is a victory that protects vulnerable LGBTQ youth from greedy con artists and ideological quacks who put their personal religious views above the mental health and wellbeing of clients,” said Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out.
TWO has been educating the public on, and fighting against, conversion therapy since it formed in 2006.
Three justices dissented and would have heard the case.
"LGBTQ+ children in the 28 states which ban conversion therapy have dodged a bullet – for now,” said Rand Hoch, president of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council.
It takes at least four justices to take up a case at the Supreme Court. Three justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, would have heard the case. In his dissent, Thomas singled out the transgender community.
“There is a fierce public debate over how best to help minors with gender dysphoria,” he wrote. The lawsuit argued the law restricted the Freedom of Speech of therapists. Thomas agreed, writing, “That is viewpoint-based and content-based discrimination in its purest form.”
In 2022 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Washington law, writing, “States do not lose the power to regulate the safety of medical treatments performed under the authority of a state license merely because those treatments are implemented through speech rather than through [a] scalpel.”
Besen agreed.
“The state can regulate false speech in a medical context to protect patients,” he said. “The bogus ‘free speech’ argument that was rejected, posits that licensed practitioners are no different than opinionated talk show hosts and don’t have any ethical obligations and duties to first do no harm.”
For years now, the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ group, has been using the courts to chip away at LGBTQ rights.
“The Alliance Defending Freedom has been handed a defeat in federal court,” Hoch said of the Supreme Court’s decision.
PBCHRC once championed local municipality bans on conversion therapy on minors, helping to enact many ordinances around the county to protect LGBTQ youth. Municipalities with bans included Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Riviera Beach, Wellington, and Greenacres. Palm Beach County also had a ban in place.
But two of those bans were challenged by the Liberty Counsel – another anti-LGBTQ group. Initially, the pro-LGBTQ side won the cases in federal court. Liberty Counsel appealed to the 11th Circuit Court where it ruled against the bans, overturning them.
At that point, Hoch urged them not to appeal and instead repeal their bans for the fear of losing the case before a conservative Supreme Court.
"Plaintiff's attorneys at Liberty Counsel clearly want to have this issue heard by the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as possible,” Hoch wrote at the time. “With the current make-up of the Court, that is not advisable. PBCHRC does not want to jeopardize the existing conversion therapy bans.”
Thomas cited that case in his dissent.
“The issue is far from over, but this was a positive, and I’d argue unexpected step,” Besen.
Thomas also wrote, "Although the Court declines to take this particular case, I have no doubt that the issue it presents will come before the Court again. When it does, the Court should do what it should have done here [take the case] to consider what the First Amendment requires." To which Hoch responded: "Hopefully before the issue of banning conversion therapy reaches the Court again, Justice Thomas will have been removed from the court or retired."
