VICTOR JOECKS: Unconstitutional conversion therapy ban was always about silencing speech

Nevada has precious few elected officials who are willing to defend unpopular speech.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Chiles v. Salazar. At issue was a Colorado law that prevented therapists from helping minors overcome same-sex attraction or confusion about their sex. Supporters of the law called these conversations “conversion therapy.” Kaley Chiles, a Colorado counselor, sued.

In an 8–1 ruling, the justices found that Colorado’s law violated her First Amendment rights. Such a large majority means this case wasn’t a close call. Justices appointed by both Republicans and Democrats agreed the law was unconstitutional.

“Colorado seeks to regulate the content of Ms. Chiles’s speech,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. Further, the Colorado law “goes a step further, prescribing what views she may and may not express.”

“Because the state has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, the constitutional issue is straightforward,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her concurrence. She also wrote that Colorado’s law “conflicts with core First Amendment principles because it regulates speech based on viewpoint.”

It might be tempting to think this is just a Colorado problem. It’s not. Nevada enacted a similar law in 2017. It had 10 primary sponsors, including Aaron Ford, who is now attorney general and is running for governor. It had 14 co-sponsors, including Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, who’s running for attorney general. Not a single Democrat voted against it.

Even many Republicans voted for it, including state Sen. James Settelmeyer, who’s now running for Congress in the 2nd Congressional District. Then-Gov. Brian Sandoval, who was a former federal judge and claimed to be a Republican, signed the legislation.

Each of these politicians would probably claim to support free speech. Yet they voted for a bill that blatantly violated the First Amendment.

It’s worth looking at how that happened. It started — as it so often does with liberal social issues — with a deception.

“Conversion therapy is a dangerous, unscientific and unethical practice based on the premise that people can change their sexual orientation or gender identity,” former state Sen. David Parks testified when presenting the bill.

But as detransitioners can painfully attest, people can do precisely that.

Then there’s the bait-and-switch. Supporters conflated conversion therapy and aversion therapy. Aversion therapy uses unpleasant stimuli, such as electroshocks, to create a negative feeling about something. But what the bill banned was “any practice or treatment” that didn’t affirm a minor’s same-sex attraction or gender identity.

Finally, there was the media’s refusal to connect the dots.

“Much of the testimony you’ve heard centered around talk,” Parks said at a hearing on the bill. “This bill does not even touch on talk.”

That was false. Instead of exposing his lie, the press parroted the left’s propaganda.

There weren’t many willing to stand up and oppose this unconstitutional speech ban. Pro-family activists Karen England, Janine Hansen and Lynn Chapman were among the few who did. Nearly a decade later, the Supreme Court showed they were right all along.