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The Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up a challenge to a state law in Washington designed to protect LGBTQ+ youths from “conversion therapy,” a decision that drew dissent from three conservative justices. More than 20 states and the District of Columbia restrict mental health counseling that attempts to change a young person’s gender identity or sexual orientation. (Marimow, 12/11)

"Washington's licensing scheme for health care providers, which disciplines them for practicing conversion therapy on minors, does not violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments," Judge Ronald Gould wrote for the 9th Circuit panel. "States do not lose the power to regulate the safety of medical treatments performed under the authority of a state license merely because those treatments are implemented through speech rather than through scalpel." (Quinn, 12/11)

When the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California’s first-in-the-nation law in 2014, it ruled the state had broad authority to regulate the practice of medicine and “professional speech” about medical treatments. The appeals court applied the same rule in upholding Washington’s law last year. “States do not lose the power to regulate the safety of medical treatments performed under the authority of a state license merely because those treatments are implemented through speech rather than through scalpel,” wrote Judge Ronald Gould. “As of 2015, every major medical, psychiatric, psychological, and professional mental health organization opposes the use of conversion therapy,” he added. (Savage, 12/11)

Do therapists have a right to tell patients to "pray away the gay"? The Court is leaving that question open. (Millhiser, 12/11)