Chiles v. Salazar

Summary

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Gorsuch joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, held that Colorado’s conversion-therapy prohibition, as applied to Chiles’s talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint and requires more demanding First Amendment scrutiny than the lower courts applied. The Court also concluded that Chiles had standing and rejected Colorado’s arguments that the restriction merely incidentally burdens professional conduct or falls within a historically established category of lesser-protected speech. It reversed the Tenth Circuit and remanded without finally resolving whether the restriction could survive the required scrutiny. Justice Kagan, joined by Justice Sotomayor, concurred to emphasize that viewpoint-neutral regulations of healthcare speech would present a different question. Justice Jackson dissented, arguing that the law reasonably regulates harmful medical treatment and only incidentally restricts treatment-related speech, and warning that the decision threatens established healthcare regulation.