Supreme Court rules against Colorado's conversion therapy ban on First Amendment grounds

""Colorado's law addressing conversion therapy does not just ban physical interventions. In cases like this, it censors speech based on viewpoint," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority. "Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same. But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.""

"Gorsuch wrote that Colorado's law doesn't just regulate the content of Chiles' speech, but "goes a step further, prescribing what views she may and may not express.""

"In her dissent, Jackson wrote that to do anything other than allow Colorado's regulation of medical treatment "opens a dangerous can of worms." "It threatens to impair States' ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect. It extends the Constitution into uncharted territory.""

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of a Colorado counselor challenging a law banning conversion therapy for minors. The court found that lower courts did not apply sufficient First Amendment scrutiny. The ruling reverses a previous decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which stated the law did not violate free-speech rights. The high court's decision mandates rigorous evaluation of the law's constitutionality, emphasizing that it censors speech based on viewpoint.

Read at Cbsnews