SCOTUS rules 8-1 that Colorado conversion therapy ban violates First Amendment

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Chiles v. Salazar on March 31, 2026, that Colorado's ban on conversion therapy for licensed counselors violated the First Amendment as viewpoint-based discrimination. Justice Gorsuch's majority held that the state cannot prohibit therapeutic speech based on a therapist's belief that same-sex attraction is changeable, applying strict scrutiny under the professional speech doctrine established in NIFLA v. Becerra (2018). Justice Jackson's lone dissent argued the law regulated harmful conduct on minors, not protected speech. Justices Kagan and Sotomayor joined the majority but wrote separately to signal that states could preserve bans by reframing them as conduct-neutral prohibitions rather than viewpoint-targeted speech restrictions.