US top court declines challenge to conversion therapy ban

At least four justices must agree for the Supreme Court to take up a case

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to a Washington state law banning conversion therapy for minors, keeping the law in place.

The challenged law prohibits licenced therapists in the state from attempts to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity.

Challengers claimed the law, which are backed by leading medical groups, breach the right to free speech.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

Justice Thomas, a leading member of the court's conservative majority, wrote in his dissent that the appeal posed important legal questions and deserved the Supreme Court's review.

"This petition asks us to consider whether Washington can censor counsellors who help minors accept their biological sex," wrote Justice Thomas. "This question has divided the courts of appeals and strikes at the heart of the First Amendment."

The Supreme Court only takes up a case if at least four of the nine justices vote to do so. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the liberals and declined to hear the case.

Washington's law, known as SB 5722, was enacted in 2018 and bars counsellors from performing conversion therapy on patients under 18. The measure does not stop licensed therapists from expressing their views with patients, recommending it be performed by others, or promoting it in private or public.

In 2021, Brian Tingley, a licensed marriage and family counsellor in Washington, challenged the constitutionality of the law, saying it violated his First Amendment right to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

"Tingley's clients seek his counsel voluntarily because they want the help his viewpoint provides," his lawyers said in court documents."Yet the Law forbids him from speaking, treating his professional license as a license for government censorship."

"A private conversation is speech, not conduct," his lawyers added.

• What is conversion therapy and when will it be banned?

But two lower courts rejected Mr Tingley's challenge, upholding the law. In is ruling, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the government was allowed to regulate the conduct of medical professionals.

"States do not lose the power to regulate the safety of medical treatments performed under the authority of a state license merely because those treatments are implemented through speech rather than through scalpel," wrote Judge Ronald Gould.

In a filing to the Supreme Court, Washington state's Attorney General Robert Ferguson defended the law, saying it "protects children and youth from ineffective and harmful treatments performed under a state-authorised license".

Mr Tingley was the only licenced therapist to allege harm from the law, Mr Ferguson said.

The underlying premise of conversion therapy, the American Medical Association says, is that same-sex attraction or nonconforming gender expression and identity are mental disorders - an assumption rejected by medical and scientific evidence.

Therapy meant to change a person's gender identity or sexuality has been denounced by professional and health associations across the US and globally because of the psychological trauma it may cause.

Conversion therapy has been banned or restricted in 26 states and the District Columbia, as well as several countries worldwide, including Canada and New Zealand.