By Lake DiStefano
Nation & World Editor
A case regarding the constitutionality of state bans on conversion therapy for minors reached the Supreme Court recently.
The Oct. 7 oral argument regarding Chiles v. Salazar presents a vision of a torn court, however the main sentiment to glean from the discussion is clear: much of the court appeared more or less sympathetic toward Kaley Chiles’ claim that Colorado's state ban violates her free speech rights as a Christian therapist under the Constitution’s First Amendment.
Conversion therapy is a disavowed and unscientific practice that seeks to actively change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Regarding the methods themselves, talk therapy is the most widely used, but another commonly used method is called aversion therapy, in which people are exposed to painful or uncomfortable sensations like electric shocks and/or nausea and paralysis causing drugs. This is done in hopes of forming a negative cognitive association with the person’s attractions or gender identity in an effort to correct it, according to WebMD.
In terms of it being unscientific, this is because conversion therapy is not condoned by the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, The American School Counselor Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, very well could overturn this ban on conversion therapy. While the trial is about Colorado’s ban specifically, the legal precedent set by siding with the plaintiff, in this case, will pave the way for many other states to legalize conversion therapy to various degrees.
So what is the argument exactly?
According to the SCOTUSblog, during the deliberation Justice Samuel Alito posed a question that I find to be the main crux of the free speech debate at the heart of this: “Have there been times when medical consensus has been … taken over by ideology?”
This line of thought has functionally become the main one which the entire debate is centered around: does Colorado law amount to discrimination against Chiles based on the religious views that she wants to express with her therapy?
Alito certainly agrees, calling it “blatant viewpoint discrimination.”
While certainly not a legal expert myself, I find it responsible of me to speak to this line of inquiry as best I can as a queer man myself. Allow me to dispel some of the more baseless misconceptions about queerness for the sake of reducing the argument to solely the factual information.
Right off the bat, Alito seems to present the argument that queer identity should legally be treated as an ideology. The possible reasons behind this line of thinking aside, I find it to be strange that queerness is so often not regarded as the biological reality that it is.
Even just personally, I have many childhood memories of feeling emotions towards fellow boys, that I only now know as an adult, was attraction. Furthermore, I was raised in an extremely homophobic environment, and these queer attractions only ramped up when puberty hit, so therefore it is only logical to assume this is my biological disposition.
It’s certainly not a psychological condition, because if it was the case I would have succeeded with my many efforts to somehow convert myself to heterosexuality via conscious thought — which is something conversion therapy claims is possible.
This is all to say that identity is not ideology when it is, in fact, objective reality.
However, from a devil’s advocate perspective, perhaps what he’s trying to get at here is that regardless of this, if one’s religion feels negatively about queerness then they are entitled to that through freedom of religious expression.
Of course, the counter in this case is simple: freedom of religion via the first amendment can not, and should not, extend into disrupting another’s own pursuit of happiness. How does religious rhetoric within therapy do so? Let’s look at the facts outside of my own experience.
Research shows that LGBTQ+ youth who underwent conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide, and more than two and a half as likely to report multiple suicide attempts, according to The Trevor Project.
These findings are more empirical evidence to counter any claim that this legal notion will pass without consequence, and even beyond the horrific outcome of more potential successful suicides, comversion therapy has been found to leave people with a host of other long-lasting social and emotional consequences, including: depression, anxiety, substance abuse, PTSD, loss of connection to community and damaged familial relationships.
One aspect of this, which continues to confound me, is this seemingly willing ignorance towards the reality that these minors are most likely not choosing this of their own free will. A lot of them will be forced into conversion therapy purely by virtue of them being minors under their guardians supervision and purview.
We’ve established that conversion therapy is objectively harmful, and we also know that the law does not, and has never, allowed guardians to do whatever they want with their children. There has always been a line when it comes to unjustified harm done onto children in one’s care, regardless of personal parenting styles.
Given the aforementioned extremity of conversion therapy’s most contested methods, and the copious amount of data regarding its negative after-effects, why should it be treated any differently legally? Scientifically backed-up bans on practices proven to be both ineffective and traumatizing, can not be called into question from a legally subjective point of view — such as religion.
Free speech should not supersede the reality of direct harm that is objectively caused by a course of action. Punching someone in the name of a perceived justice is still assault, just as attempting to cure someone of queerness with conversion therapy in the name of a God is still abuse.
The main part of this that I struggle with is this insistence that nuance must always exist. The main fallacy of this argument is the idea that this is something up for debate. It’s not. The evidence, which is rooted in objective reality, immediately disproves any perceived benefit conversion therapy has within a subjective religious perspective.
Let’s not beat around the bush here: if this precedent is set legally, queer children will die because of this. The evidence shows this, and given that information, there is little moral grayness in this to me.
From a personal perspective, when I was struggling to come to terms with my own queer sexuality at age 14, the rhetoric which informs these practices was often thrown at me within many religious environments.
To put it simply, I would not have survived conversion therapy at that time in my life — and that was with supporting parents. I cannot imagine the loss of life that will result from queer children in worse home situations as a result of this potential ruling.
Ultimately, I cannot concede that there is any nuance in this debate. There is no speech to protect in this case, because it stops being speech once harm is caused. It’s just violence then, and free speech does not equal free violence.
Queer kids will lose their lives if the court sides with the plaintiff. The data shows that.
Political conjecture is not a game to win. Rhetoric can take lives, and in this case it is going to.
A decision is expected by the summer, according to the SCOTUSblog, and I can only hope that when it comes that it is a moral one.
