The U.S. Supreme Court is back in session, which is always a cause for concern. In recent years, the court, with six members now favorable to Christian Nationalist arguments, is making a hash of religious freedom.
The court today is hearing oral arguments in a case dealing with LGBTQ+ rights. Chiles v. Salazar concerns a Colorado law, the Minor Conversion Therapy Law (MCTL), that bans counselors from trying to change a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
This law has a clear secular purpose: It was enacted to protect LGBTQ+ children from so-called “conversion therapy,” which scientific research and medical evidence have shown to be ineffective and even dangerous.
The Christian Nationalist legal group Alliance Defending Freedom argues that the law violates religious freedom and free speech. A legal brief Americans United and its allies filed before the high court debunks this argument.
“There is nothing in the record to support the argument that the MCTL was enacted with anti-religious animus or to target religion,” observes the brief. “Instead, the MCTL was enacted to address secular concerns – protecting minors from harmful and ineffective mental health treatment.”
AU Senior Litigation Counsel Amy Tai, one of the authors of the brief, stressed that point in an interview with United Press International, remaking, “This case is about Colorado’s law that protects LGBTQ+ youth from being subjected to harmful and discredited conversion therapy practices. The law is not anti-religion and applies to all mental health professionals. It does not ban conversion therapy on religious grounds.”
In a statement, AU President and CEO Rachel Laser urged the Supreme Court to acknowledge that the law’s purpose is to protect vulnerable youth.
“Our country’s promise of church-state separation means that all Americans must be free to live as themselves and believe as they choose, as long as they do not harm others,” Laser said. “We urge the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm that our laws can protect vulnerable LGBTQ+ children from the proven harm of conversion therapy.”
Laser added, “This is yet another case spearheaded by Alliance Defending Freedom, an aggressive Christian Nationalist organization that is manipulating the courts in order to turn religious freedom into a license to discriminate. We need a national recommitment to the separation of church and state.”
Religious freedom is crucial to the American experience. But religious freedom has historically been tempered by the understanding that no one can use that noble principle as an instrument to harm others or take away their rights.
The Supreme Court has been drifting away from that concept, which threatens to turn religious freedom from a shield that protects into a sword that lashes out.
It’s time to reverse course. The Chiles case is an excellent place to start that much-needed shift.
