U.S. Supreme Court ducks conversion-therapy case, but it won’t help in FL

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to let stand Washington state’s ban on conversion therapy for minors will come as cold comfort to LGBTQ+ youth in Florida — indeed, throughout the Southeast, since an Atlanta-based appeal court has declared such bans unconstitutional.

That means that within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which includes Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, attempting to convince LGBTQ+ youth that they can turn straight remains the law of the land.

“There is no change,” Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, a law office that litigated the Eleventh Circuit cases, told the Phoenix by email Monday about the situation here. “The Supreme Court did not render a decision. Liberty Counsel’s cases stand and the laws in FL, GA, and AL are struck down.”

The Atlanta court struck down a Tampa anti-conversion therapy ordinance in February, having already rejected similar measures in Boca Raton and Palm Beach County, ruling they violated the First Amendment.

To the Human Rights Campaign, conversion therapy represents as “a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.”

In a press release, Staver’s organization described the purported therapy as “conversations” aimed at “providing minor clients with help to reduce or eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or gender confusion.”

What the justices didn’t do

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari in an appeal from a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling upholding Washington’s ban. That means the court declined to hear the appeal, even though that created a jurisprudential split with the Eleventh Circuit — normally, an inducement to take the case.

The outcome means that conversion therapy can be banned throughout the large number of western states within the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction.

Only Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas voted to take the Washington appeal.

Alito cited the split, writing, “This case presents a question of national importance. In recent years, 20 states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws prohibiting or restricting the practice of conversion therapy. It is beyond dispute that these laws restrict speech, and all restrictions on speech merit careful scrutiny.”

“It is a fundamental principle that governments have no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content,” Thomas wrote. “A law that restricts speech based on its content or viewpoint is presumptively unconstitutional and may be upheld only if the state can prove that the law is narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests.”

“Liberty Counsel will continue until these unconstitutional counseling bans are overturned nationwide. It is not a matter of if, but only a matter of when, all these counseling bans will be struck down,” Staver said in a written statement.

“That day is coming. Liberty Counsel has been in this fight since California passed the first counseling ban. Our recent wins at the Court of Appeals sets up a conflict that the high court will have to resolve. Government has no authority to prohibit one viewpoint of talk therapy.”