Supreme Court leaves intact Washington state conversion therapy ban

The Supreme Court said it won’t review Washington state’s conversion therapy ban for minors, allowing the law to remain in effect.

The justices declined to take up an appeal from Brian Tingley, a licensed marriage and family therapist who sought to strike down the statute as unconstitutional.

Three of the Supreme Court’s conservatives — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh — said they would’ve heard Tingley’s appeal.

A federal appeals court last year upheld the law, which bans counselors from seeking to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of someone under the age of 18.

Tingley argued the law violates his First Amendment rights by censoring him and targeting him for his Christian beliefs.

“Tingley’s clients seek his counsel voluntarily because they want the help his viewpoint provides,” his attorney wrote in court filings. “Yet the Law forbids him from speaking, treating his professional license as a license for government censorship.”

In separate written dissents, Thomas and Alito said the issue merited the high court’s review. The duo have previously indicated on multiple occasions a willingness to wade into LGBTQ issues.

“In recent years, 20 States and the District of Columbia have adopted laws prohibiting or restricting the practice of conversion therapy. It is beyond dispute that these laws restrict speech, and all restrictions on speech merit careful scrutiny,” Alito wrote.

“The Ninth Circuit set a troubling precedent by condoning this regime,” Thomas similarly wrote.

“Although the Court declines to take this particular case, I have no doubt that the issue it presents will come before the Court again. When it does, the Court should do what it should have done here: grant certiorari to consider what the First Amendment requires,” he continued.

Tingley had also suggested the high court use the case as a vehicle to consider a broader question concerning religious rights.

Tingley said his case showed a need to overturn Employment Division v. Smith, a 1990 case in which the court ruled that laws comply with the First Amendment’s guarantee of free religious exercise if they are neutral and don’t specifically target religious practice.

The court considered overruling it in a 2021 case but ultimately did not. Three of the court’s conservatives — Thomas, Alito and Justice Neil Gorsuch — said at the time they would have tossed the precedent.

Tingley’s request to hear the case was supported by 12 Republican state attorneys general and various conservative religious groups.

“Washington’s censorship also taints science with politics. Free speech protects professional fields like medicine from the political pressures that often stifle rather than advance the scientific endeavor,” the states wrote in their brief.