Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Chiles v. Salazar, a case from a licensed mental health counselor challenging Colorado’s 2019 counseling ban that violates the free speech of licensed counselors who help minors deal with unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or gender confusion. Regarding Chiles v. Salazar, Liberty Counsel argues Colorado’s law relies heavily on ideology instead of sound science, and that it should not stand because the First Amendment does not allow any state to dictate which counseling viewpoints may be discussed between a counselor and the client.
The case is expected to be argued in the fall of 2025, with a decision to follow in 2026.
“The First Amendment prohibits states from dictating which therapeutic approaches may be spoken,” wrote Liberty Counsel. “Colorado’s law restricts speech solely based on viewpoint. Such laws in the realm of counseling are unprecedented and go directly against the fundamental essence of counseling, namely that the client has the right of self-determination to choose the counseling objective.”
Liberty Counsel continued, “But exploratory therapy—rooted in self-determination—seeks not to impose an identity but to help children understand their distress before making irreversible decisions.”
Kaley Chiles is a licensed mental health counselor in Colorado who treats clients with issues related to addiction, trauma, gender confusion, and sexual attraction. However, the Colorado law in question authorizes fines of up to $5,000 per violation and suspension or even revocation of the counselor’s license for attempting to help a minor overcome unwanted gender confusion or same-sex attractions.
Liberty Counsel filed the first legal challenges to these counseling bans in 2012, involving the states of California (Pickup v. Newsom) and New Jersey (King v. Christie). While the Ninth and Third Circuit Courts of Appeal upheld these bans for different reasons, in 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court nullified both decisions when it struck down California’s law that attempted to regulate the speech of crisis pregnancy centers (NIFLA v. Newsom).
In 2023, while the U.S. Supreme Court declined a similar challenge to a Washington state counseling ban, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that these bans have “silenced one side of this debate” and are viewpoint “discrimination in its purest form.” He then rightfully predicted that the issue “will come before the Court again” and stated at that time the Court must decide “what the First Amendment requires.” Now that SCOTUS is indeed giving counseling bans a full review, the issue will be decided of whether these types of laws violate the First Amendment rights of free speech and religion of licensed counselors.
In the brief, Liberty Counsel explained that Colorado’s law does not rely on sound evidence, but rather on an ideological consensus “manufactured” by “experts” from prestigious major medical and mental health associations (MMHA). Colorado’s law and its defense of that law leans heavily on the “expert” proclamations of these associations that attempt to deconstruct the male and female sexes and have branded any deviation from the “affirmation” model as dangerous and unethical. Liberty Counsel noted that when these “activists masquerading as ‘experts’ pressure lawmakers,” the very speech that can help vulnerable gender-confused youth is legislated into silence.
“The chilling effect on talk therapy extends well beyond Colorado’s borders. Counselors who merely wish to explore the roots of a client’s unwanted sexual attractions or gender-related distress—whether trauma, comorbidities, or social pressures—now face professional ruin for declining to affirm a single, ideologically preferred narrative,” wrote Liberty Counsel. As counselors face threats to their licenses, reputations, and livelihoods simply for declining to rubber-stamp chemical castration and surgical mutilation, children are left with only one narrative, accept their gender confusion and proceed to medical mutilation, no matter the cost.
Liberty Counsel’s brief states:
“Colorado’s law restricts speech solely based on viewpoint. Such laws in the realm of counseling are unprecedented and go directly against the fundamental essence of counseling, namely that the client has the right of self-autonomy to choose the counseling objective. Counselors are like a GPS. The client choses the direction of the counseling goal and the counselor helps the client navigate the traffic to achieve the client’s objective. Like a GPS, the client, not the counselor, is in control of the intended destination. But Colorado’s law frustrates the client by always misdirecting the client 180 degrees from the client’s objective. Colorado’s law not only violates the First Amendment, but it is also harmful to a person’s mental health and well-being.”
Conversely, both the United Kingdom’s four-year Cass Review and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Report have documented the need to prioritize mental health therapies before resorting to irreversible medical procedures. Liberty Counsel noted in the brief that a key recommendation of the Cass Review was to “abandon the ideologically [medical mutilation] model in favor of talk therapy as a first-line intervention.”
Colorado’s justification for its therapy ban “further rings hollow” by prohibiting the very therapies both the Cass Review and HHS now recommend as a viable alternative to irreversible medical procedures, wrote Liberty Counsel. In addition, the MMHAs have failed to seriously engage with perspectives grounded in religious identity. In doing so, they disregard a core principle of patient-centered care, which is respect for the goals of values of any client, especially those who may want to align their gender identity and attraction with their biological sex.
Liberty Counsel has represented licensed counselors who have used talk therapy to help many people. Through Liberty Counsel’s efforts, city ordinances in Florida and Iowa banning this type of counseling have been struck down or repealed preserving the free speech rights of counselors so they can help their clients to reduce or eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or gender confusion. In both Otto v. City of Boca Raton and Vazzo v. City of Tampa, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down city ordinances that prohibited licensed counselors from providing voluntary talk therapy to minors seeking help to eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions or gender confusion because they were unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Laws that restrict counselors and clients to only one viewpoint violate the First Amendment. Talk therapy is speech, and the government has no authority to restrict that speech to just one viewpoint. Counseling bans must be struck down nationwide so that people can get the counseling they need. Counselors and clients should have the freedom to choose the counsel of their choice and be free of government censorship.”
