Jackson’s Dissent Says Colorado’s ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ban Is Proper Standard of Care

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissent on a March 31 decision ruling against Colorado’s ban on “talk conversion therapy” for LGBT youth. Eight out of nine Justices agreed that the law was a form of “viewpoint discrimination” by the state, and rejected Colorado’s argument that it was regulating the “conduct,” not really the speech, of mental health professionals. Jackson said the other eight Justices, along with the Department of Justice that argued for the plaintiffs, were incorrect. “The United States and the majority just insist that a law that undertakes to regulate speech-based medical treatments is presumptively unconstitutional because the treatment is being administered solely through speech,” Jackson wrote in her dissent....