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US Supreme Court Sides With Christian Counsellor Against ‘Conversion Therapy’ Bans
By ODMDaily Editorial Team | Free Speech · Religious Liberty · Law
In a near-unanimous ruling that has sent shockwaves through the legal and cultural landscape, the United States Supreme Court has found that Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy” discriminated on the basis of viewpoint — allowing pro-transition speech while silencing counsellors who affirm biological reality.
The 8-1 decision, handed down on Tuesday, represents a monumental victory for free speech, religious liberty, and the right of counsellors to provide care consistent with their clients’ values and biological truth. It also places a glaring spotlight on Australia, where three jurisdictions have enacted broad criminal bans on similar faith-based counselling — bans that may now be constitutionally vulnerable.
This is not a narrow technical ruling. It is a sweeping affirmation of the First Amendment’s core protection against viewpoint-based censorship. And it carries profound implications for every nation that claims to value free speech, including Australia.
The Case: Chiles v. Salazar
The case, Chiles v. Salazar, centred on Kaley Chiles, a licensed Christian counsellor in Colorado who challenged the state’s 2019 Minor Conversion Therapy Law. The law prevented Chiles from accepting clients who wanted help aligning their identity with their biological sex — specifically, children and adolescents experiencing gender distress who voluntarily sought counselling to help them feel comfortable in their bodies.
Chiles did not seek to impose her views on anyone. She did not practice coercion or abuse. She simply wanted to offer voluntary, client-directed counselling to families who shared her values and requested her help. Under Colorado’s law, that was a crime.
The state argued that it was simply regulating professional conduct — protecting minors from a harmful practice. But the Supreme Court saw through that framing.
Justice Gorsuch’s Majority Opinion: Viewpoint Discrimination Is Egregious
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, delivered a masterclass in constitutional reasoning. He found that Colorado’s law did not merely regulate professional conduct — it discriminated on the basis of viewpoint.
“Colorado’s law addressing ‘conversion therapy’ does not just ban physical interventions,” Gorsuch wrote. “In cases like this, it censors speech based on viewpoint.”
The law, he found, permitted Chiles to express acceptance and support for clients exploring gender transition — but barred her from saying anything aimed at helping a client reduce unwanted same-sex attraction or accept their body’s natural sex characteristics.
“As applied to Ms Chiles, Colorado’s law regulates the content of her speech and goes further to prescribe what views she may and may not express,” the majority held.
The court grounded its ruling in the First Amendment’s core prohibition on viewpoint-based censorship. “The First Amendment stands as a bulwark against any effort to prescribe an orthodoxy of views,” Gorsuch wrote. “Laws like Colorado’s, which suppress speech based on viewpoint, represent an egregious assault on both commitments.”
That language is powerful. “Egregious assault” is not a phrase the Supreme Court uses lightly. The majority was making clear that laws which criminalise one side of a cultural debate — while permitting the other — are fundamentally incompatible with the American constitutional order.
The Lone Dissenter: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the Supreme Court’s lone dissenter, arguing that Colorado was simply regulating healthcare, not restricting speech.
“There is no right to practice medicine which is not subordinate to the police power of the States,” she wrote, warning that the majority’s reasoning “opens a dangerous can of worms” for the ability of US states to regulate medical professionals.
Jackson’s dissent drew pointed commentary given her position in a related 2025 case. In United States v. Skrmetti, Jackson had argued that states have no right to ban medical gender transition procedures for minors. Her position in Chiles was the inverse — that states do have the right to ban counsellors from telling boys they are not girls.
Critics have noted the inconsistency: in Skrmetti, Jackson argued that states cannot protect minors from irreversible medical interventions; in Chiles, she argued that states can protect minors from words. The logical thread is difficult to follow.
What the Ruling Means for Free Speech
Speaking with ODMDaily, Dr Paul Bedwell, Director of Youth For Christ Australia, explained that the ruling establishes a principle that has direct application to Australian law.
“The Supreme Court of the United States has drawn a clear line: governments cannot dictate which conversations are allowed based on preferring one ideology and criminalising another,” he said.
“What we’re seeing is a shift back toward important principles — governments may regulate conduct, but they don’t get to dictate our conversations or our thoughts.”
Bedwell said the ruling affirms what ethical counselling practice already requires. “We all want to prevent coercion and abuse, but ethically conducted supportive care must apply best practice: client-directed therapy. This is where an individual freely chooses the direction of their own therapy — even if that is away from LGBT identification.”
He pointed to scientific data that underscores the injustice of Australian laws that prohibit that choice. “The highest level of scientific data, including the Add Health study of more than 20,000 US adolescents, reveals that in 70% of adolescents, sexuality changes from LGBT to heterosexual without any intervention,” Bedwell said.
*”The laws that lock this majority out of receiving any support are plainly wrong. This US Supreme Court ruling — in an overwhelming majority of 8-1 — has confirmed as much.”*
The Narrow Scope of the Ruling
It is important to understand what the ruling does and does not do.
The ruling is narrow. It does not strike down Colorado’s law outright. Instead, it requires lower courts to apply strict First Amendment scrutiny — a standard that the state of Colorado will struggle to meet.
The ruling will now return to the Tenth Circuit for fresh review under the stricter standard. Legal observers expect the Colorado law to struggle, while similar statutes across more than 20 US states face renewed legal challenges.
However, the logic of the ruling is clear: laws that criminalise speech based on viewpoint are presumptively unconstitutional. And laws that permit counsellors to affirm gender transition while prohibiting counsellors from affirming biological sex are textbook viewpoint discrimination.
Response from the Christian Community
Jim Campbell of the Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued the case before the court, called the outcome significant for free speech. “It sends a message that viewpoint discrimination is egregious,” he told reporters after the ruling. “It is a really significant vote of confidence for the First Amendment.”
Kaley Chiles herself welcomed the result on behalf of the families she serves at her practice. “I am thrilled that the ruling will help struggling kids and families who are seeking professional guidance consistent with biological reality,” she said.
Conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey praised the decision as a victory for truth. “Everyone should be free to access care and counselling that points them to biblical truth and supports them in their struggle against sin,” she wrote on X. “True, damaging ‘conversion therapy’ is the kind that convinces kids they’re the opposite gender. Affirming reality to children isn’t ‘conversion’ — it’s truth-filled love.”
Australian Laws Under the Microscope
The decision arrives as Australia maintains some of the world’s most expansive speech restrictions on faith-based counselling. Three jurisdictions have enacted broad criminal bans that go well beyond clinical settings to affect pastoral care, prayer ministry, and biblical teaching.
Victoria’s Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021 is the most expansive. It carries criminal penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment and contains no clear exemption for faith-based care, even where a client has consented.
The ACT’s Sexuality and Gender Identity Conversion Practices Act 2020 applies broadly to churches, counselling, and faith-based education, with no clear exemptions for prayer or pastoral guidance that authorities determine constitutes a “sustained effort” to change a person’s identity.
New South Wales’ Conversion Practices Ban Act 2024 imposes criminal and civil penalties for faith-based counselling and prayer. Anti-Discrimination NSW has confirmed that “praying with or over a particular person in an attempt to try to change or suppress that person’s sexuality or gender” is unlawful, and that the prohibition holds even where the person has voluntarily sought help.
South Australia’s Conversion Practices Prohibition Act 2024 is narrower. There, most expressions of religious belief are protected, though whether ministries helping people with unwanted same-sex attraction over long periods constitute an offence remains a question for the courts.
Queensland’s 2019 legislation restricts conversion practices only within regulated health services, placing most pastoral and church-based ministry outside its reach. Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory have not yet enacted bans.
Why the US Ruling Matters for Australia
Dr Bedwell said the ruling should prompt deep reflection in Canberra.
“This raises serious questions about whether Australian lawmakers have any interest at all in protecting free speech, or whether they will try to enforce one ideology upon Australians and criminalise any other views — and all at the cost of a minority group that has been mistreated and marginalised,” he said.
“Those who have left LGBT identification behind do exist and do deserve the basic human rights that everyone else enjoys,” Bedwell added.
“I pray we learn the lesson and move away from the criminalisation of supportive care we have seen in recent Australian laws.”
The US Supreme Court’s ruling does not directly bind Australian courts. However, the reasoning is persuasive. The principle that governments should not dictate which conversations are allowed — preferring one ideology and criminalising another — is not uniquely American. It is a universal principle of liberal democracy.
If Australian laws criminalise a Christian counsellor for telling a distressed boy that he is male, while permitting a secular counsellor to tell that same boy that he is female, then those laws are engaged in the same viewpoint discrimination that the US Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional.
The Scientific Evidence Ignored by Lawmakers
One of the most troubling aspects of Australia’s conversion therapy bans is that they were enacted with little regard for scientific evidence.
As Dr Bedwell noted, the Add Health study of more than 20,000 US adolescents found that in 70% of adolescents, sexuality changes from LGBT to heterosexual without any intervention. That is not “conversion therapy.” That is natural developmental fluidity.
Yet Australian laws now criminalise any counsellor who helps a young person navigate that natural fluidity in the direction they voluntarily choose. A teenager who experiences same-sex attraction but does not want to identify as LGBT is effectively locked out of receiving any support — because the law assumes that the only valid outcome is LGBT affirmation.
This is not compassion. It is coercion.
The Difference Between Coercion and Voluntary Care
Everyone agrees that coercive, abusive practices should be prohibited. No one should be forced into any form of counselling against their will. No one should be subjected to physical harm or psychological torture.
But that is not what Kaley Chiles was offering. That is not what Christian counsellors in Australia are offering. They offer voluntary, client-directed, consent-based counselling to families who share their values and request their help.
The US Supreme Court recognised that distinction. Colorado’s law did not. Neither do Victoria’s, the ACT’s, or New South Wales’ laws.
By lumping voluntary, ethical counselling together with abusive practices, these laws punish the innocent alongside the guilty. And they deprive vulnerable people — including many who do not want to embrace an LGBT identity — of the support they desperately need.
A Call to Action for Australian Christians
The US Supreme Court has given us a gift: a clear, powerful, well-reasoned opinion that exposes the constitutional and moral flaws of conversion therapy bans. Now it is time to use it.
Pray for Australian lawmakers, that their hearts would be turned toward justice, freedom, and truth.
Speak to your local MP and senators. Ask them whether they support criminalising a Christian counsellor for telling a distressed boy that he is male. Ask them whether they have read the Add Health study. Ask them whether they believe a 70% majority of adolescents should be locked out of support.
Advocate for legislative reform. Victoria, the ACT, and New South Wales need their laws reviewed and amended. Other states and territories need to resist pressure to enact similar bans.
Support organisations like Youth For Christ Australia, the Australian Christian Lobby, and Alliance Defending Freedom International, who are working tirelessly to protect religious liberty and free speech.
Encourage counsellors and pastors who are afraid to speak the truth. Let them know they are not alone. Let them know that the tide is turning.
A Prayer for Free Speech and Religious Liberty
Lord, we thank You that You have made us in Your image — male and female — and that Your truth is not a burden but a liberation. We pray for our brothers and sisters in the United States who have won this victory at the Supreme Court. We pray for Kaley Chiles and for every counsellor who has been silenced for speaking biological truth. We pray for Australia, where similar laws have criminalised compassionate, voluntary care. Raise up lawmakers with courage. Raise up advocates with wisdom. Raise up pastors with boldness. Let the truth prevail, and let the vulnerable be protected — not by silencing speech, but by honouring the dignity of every person to seek the help they choose. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Final Word: Truth Is Not Conversion
The term “conversion therapy” has been weaponised to silence anyone who dares to suggest that biological reality matters, that gender is not a social construct, or that same-sex attraction is not an immutable identity.
But truth is not conversion. Affirming reality is not abuse. And telling a boy that he is a boy is not a crime — or at least, it should not be.
The US Supreme Court has affirmed that principle. Now it is Australia’s turn to listen.
About the Author:
This article is based on reporting from The Daily Declaration and is published by ODMDaily.com. Our mission is to declare biblical truth for the public square with clarity, courage, and hope.
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Suggested Discussion Questions for Small Groups:
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Before reading this article, were you aware that Australian laws criminalise faith-based counselling for gender-distressed children? How does that change your perspective?
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The US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Colorado’s law constituted viewpoint discrimination. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
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What is the difference between coercive abuse and voluntary, client-directed counselling? Does the law in your state or territory recognise that difference?
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The Add Health study found that 70% of adolescents experience natural sexual fluidity away from LGBT identification. Should those young people have access to support? Why or why not?
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How can Christians advocate for free speech and religious liberty in Australia without being accused of hate?
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Does your church or small group pray regularly for lawmakers and for the protection of religious freedom? If not, how can you start?
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