The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a case challenging Washington state’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. The court let stand a lower court ruling that upheld the state’s ban on a therapy that the American Medical Association says is “not based on medical and scientific evidence.”
Washington’s law, which took effect in 2018, allows the state to revoke the licences of therapists who attempt to change a minor’s sexual orientation. Brian Tingley, a family counsellor and conversion therapy advocate, challenged the law in court, represented by the anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom. He claimed the law violated his First Amendment right to free speech.
Two lower courts had upheld the law.
The court’s decision on Monday not to hear the case did not include a statement of reasons, as is customary when it declines to do so. But Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas dissented from the order and would have heard the case.
In his dissent, Thomas wrote: “Although the Court declines to take this particular case, I have no doubt that the issue it presents will come before the Court again. When it does, the Court should do what it should have done here” and take the case “to consider what the First Amendment requires”.