Chiles v. Salazar

WASHINGTON – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to hear the case of a licensed professional counselor in Colorado who helps clients talk about various issues, including gender identity and sexual orientation.

A Colorado law violates Kaley Chiles’ freedom of speech by censoring and prohibiting private client-counselor conversations regarding sexual orientation and gender identity that the government disfavors. That same law allows—even encourages—conversations the government favors. In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld Colorado’s law, reasoning that mere talking during a counseling session is “conduct” the First Amendment does not protect—prompting ADF attorneys to file a petition with the nation’s high court.

“The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors, nor should a counselor be used as a tool to impose the government’s biased views on her clients,” said ADF Legal Counsel Cody Barnett. “As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a similar case, even though these types of laws are ‘viewpoint-based … discrimination in its purest form,’ the federal appeals courts are currently divided 2–2 over whether they are valid. We are urging the Supreme Court to hear Kaley’s case, resolve the split, and stop Colorado officials from banning someone’s speech simply because they disagree with her beliefs. All Americans should be allowed to speak freely and seek the best possible help they desire.”

Colorado’s law violates Chiles’ freedom of speech by prohibiting licensed counselors from having any conversation with clients under age 18 that “attempts or purports 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 attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

Significantly, the law only prohibits counsel in one direction. For example, it allows counseling conversations that aim to steer young people toward a gender identity different than the client’s sex but prohibits conversations that aim to help that same person return to comfort with his or her sex. The law threatens fines of up to $5,000 per violation, suspension from practice, and even revocation of the counselor’s license.

As the petition filed with the Supreme Court in Chiles v. Salazar explains, Chiles “works ‘with voluntary clients who determine the goals that they have for themselves.’ And Chiles’ clients voluntarily and specifically seek her counsel because they want the help her viewpoint provides. Yet Colorado’s law forbids her from speaking, treating her professional license as a license for government censorship.”

The 10th Circuit’s decision harms countless counselors and other professionals. Worse, as the petition explains, “[a]midst an unprecedented mental-health crisis among this country’s young people,” the decision “prevents vulnerable individuals in many states from obtaining the counseling they desire and desperately need.” Further delay in righting these wrongs and this “unconstitutional counseling censorship is unthinkable.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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