Kaley Chiles is a Christian counselor who wants to help people who voluntarily come to her with unwanted same-sex attractions or gender identity issues. Colorado does not allow this to occur and refers to it as conversion therapy.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), however, calls it talk therapy and says the state's efforts to prevent Chiles and other counselors from helping clients is wrong.
"The Supreme Court has been clear that the First Amendment applies and that it applies to professionals, that just because somebody has a professional license doesn't mean that they check their free speech rights at the door," notes Cody Barnett, who has represented various ADF clients before appellate courts across the country.
He thinks the fact that the Supreme Court has taken this case up is a strong signal that justices will affirm that protection also includes counselors like Kaley Chiles.
As approximately 20 states and many cities have enacted laws like Colorado's. Barnett points out that the ruling will impact more than The Centennial State.
If Chiles wins, then counselors across the country would be free to speak to clients and allow clients to "freely pursue the goal that they want with their counselor" without having the state sit metaphorically in the counseling room and direct them on what type of counseling is OK, what views are OK, and what type of identities they should prioritize.
Barnett thinks this case is critical for counselors, parents, children, and professionals across the country because if Colorado can censor what a counselor says, then any state can censor anything a professional does by just calling it conduct, which is what Colorado has done in this case.
"This has implications that ripple far beyond just Colorado and even beyond the counseling room itself," the attorney asserts.
The U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in the case, formally known as Chiles v. Salazar, today.
