Supreme Court Affirms Right To Biblical Counseling, Strikes Down Conversion Therapy Ban

In a landmark 8-1 decision handed down on March 31, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a powerful rebuke to government overreach and a resounding victory for religious liberty, free speech, and the rights of families. In Chiles v. Salazar, the justices struck down Colorado’s 2019 ban on so-called “conversion therapy” for minors, ruling that the law unconstitutionally censored speech based on viewpoint. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, “The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.” There is a certain sense of irony that the Episcopalian from Colorado wrote the majority opinion. 

At the heart of the case was Kaley Chiles, a licensed Christian counselor in Colorado who practices talk therapy with compassion and integrity. Contrary to modern psychology, Chiles listens to her clients and helps them pursue their own goals. For some young people wrestling with unwanted same-sex attractions, gender confusion, or the painful fallout of a broken culture, that goal includes seeking harmony with their God-given bodies and biblical truth.

Colorado’s law, however, declared such counseling illegal while explicitly permitting the opposite: affirmation of transgender identities and gender-transition procedures. The state was not regulating medicine; it was picking sides in a spiritual and moral debate, punishing those who dared to disagree.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Biden nominee who famously pretended not to know what a woman is, stood alone in dissent, arguing that states may regulate speech incidental to “medical treatment.” But talk therapy is not medication.

This ruling protects not only Christian counselors but also faithful pastors, youth leaders, and parents who want to guide their children according to Scripture rather than the latest cultural fad.