The Supreme Court seems likely to overrule a law banning conversion therapy for minors, horrifying queer faith leaders and their allies after years of fighting to protect queer children.
Colorado’s minor conversion therapy law prohibits state-licensed mental health workers from seeking to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity, including attempts to reduce or eliminate same-sex attraction or change “behaviors or gender expressions.” Violations are punishable by a fine of up to $5,000. The petitioner Kaley Chiles is a Christian counselor who argues that the law violates her First Amendment right to free speech by censoring what can be discussed with consent in therapy sessions.
Chris Damian, a gay Catholic lawyer, told Sojourners that the case hinges on whether talk therapy is considered a form of speech or whether it’s considered conduct.
“Obviously this case is about conversion therapy,” Damian said. “But it’s also about much more. It’s about whether and how state legislatures can hold mental health professionals accountable for their practice.”
Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson told the justices that the law regulates conduct, not speech. She said states should not lose their longstanding power to regulate safety in health care and to restrict providers’ use of harmful treatments that violate a profession's standard of care “just because they are using words.”
The court is expected to release a decision by June 2026, which will likely have ripple effects in the more than two dozen states that restrict conversion therapy. On Oct. 7, during oral arguments, the court’s 6-3 conservative majority seemed skeptical of allowing the law to stand.
The experience of conversion therapy
For many working at the intersection of faith and LGBTQ+ rights, the court case is prompting them to revisit their professional and personal conversion therapy experiences.
Lucas Wilson, a scholar who studies religion, gender, sexuality, and history, is also a survivor of conversion therapy. He attended one-on-one meetings with and group conversations led by Pastor Dane Emerick, the longtime conversion therapist who retired in 2021. Emerick encouraged him and other Liberty University students to strive toward straightness, handing them Alan Medinger’s workbook Growth in Manhood: Resuming the Journey. The repression, shame, and self-hatred lingered long after he left Liberty.
Wilson told Sojourners in an email that practitioners of conversion therapy often “tell queer and trans individuals that they are sick, incomplete, and sinful.”
READ MORE: God Created Me To Be a Transgender Man
Wilson’s research led him to publish Shame-Sex Attraction, a 2025 anthology of stories from conversion therapy survivors, many from faith communities. Faith remains a key part of many conversion therapy programs that weaponize a fear of sin and subsequent eternal damnation to urge young people to “pray the gay away.”
“They are degraded and made to feel unworthy for simply being themselves. This messaging, often repeated over a sustained period of time, pushes LGBTQ+ individuals to believe that they are damaged and that they will only be made whole if they are able to complete the impossible task of changing their genders and/or sexualities,” Wilson wrote. “As such, conversion therapy is nothing short of definitional abuse.”
The American Psychological Association opposes conversion therapy and estimates that 698,000 LGBTQ+ adults have undergone it, around half as minors. A report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people who experienced conversion therapy are 88% more likely to attempt suicide. According to research published by The Trevor Project in 2021, over 500,000 LGBTQ+ children in the United States were estimated to be at risk of conversion therapy.
Another report in 2023 found that more than 1,300 people practice conversion therapy across the United States, including 716 people who in ministerial or religious roles. More than a quarter of LGBTQ+ youth between 13 and 17 live in states with no laws or policies about conversion therapy; half of LGBTQ+ youth live in a state where conversion therapy is legal.
Building a better future for queer kids
Like Wilson, Darren Calhoun survived conversion therapy. He first encountered it in a Black charismatic church on the South Side of Chicago and shares his story as part of Born Perfect, a program founded in 2014 to end conversion therapy by passing laws across the country to protect LGBTQ+ children. Calhoun, now a minister, worship leader, and activist, believes that queer Christians have a special role in advocating vocally and visibly for a better future for queer children.
“There is so much stigma that still exists and so much confusion … about what it means to be queer and Christian,” Calhoun told Sojourners. “For us who are in a place to have the privilege to speak out and be loud about it, we have to carry the burden of this messaging in so many ways.
“We need everybody’s voice in upholding the progress that has been made already around ending conversion therapy.”
Bridget Cabrera, executive director of the Methodist Federation for Social Action, said that ending conversion therapy fits into her organization’s legacy. Founded in 1907, MFSA is one of 23 faith organizations named in an amicus briefsupporting the ban.
“Conversion therapy denies the image of God in queer people; it tells them they must change to be loved by God,” Cabrera said. “That is the opposite of the Gospel.”
Cabrera and Calhoun said ending conversion therapy is both a Christian and human rights imperative.
“It’s about affirming that every person, including every queer person, bears the divine image and deserves to live free from psychological and spiritual harm,” Cabrera said.
Conservative religious opposition
Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal group representing Chiles, spearheads the conservative effort urging the Supreme Court to overturn the conversion therapy ban. While not all conversion therapy is supported or run by faith-based organizations, many conservative advocacy groups are supporting Chiles, including amicus briefs filed by Heartbeat International, the James Dobson Family Institute, the Changed Movement, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Family Research Council, the Christian Legal Society, and more. ADF’s petition to the court has been criticized by several scholars whose research was included, saying that their work on conversion therapy has been “profoundly” misrepresented.
It’s not just conservative Protestants supporting Chiles. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn Colorado’s law. The USCCB has not released explicit guidance on conversion therapy, but it did release a 2006 document titled Ministry to Persons with Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care, in which it emphasized maintaining chastity and seeking counseling from a professional who “understands and supports the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.”
For Damian, the bishops’ open support of conversion therapy gives him a “greater sense of personal responsibility.” He hopes that Catholics who feel frustrated by the USCCB’s support of conversion therapy will feel the same.
“I need to take accountability as a Catholic even when my bishops won’t,” Damian said.
Cabrera echoed the idea that queer-affirming Christians ought to speak out, saying that it is “crucial that the public sees there are faithful Christians who reject the misuse of religion to justify harm.”
“This is about protecting youth from uncredited and unsubstantiated claims and treatments,” Calhoun said. “I want us to do what we can to protect them and do what the data that shows is the best practice, the best ways to keep people healthy, safe, and alive.”
Reuters reporting contributed to this story.
“There is so much stigma that still exists and so much confusion … about what it means to be queer and Christian,” Darren Calhoun said. “We have to carry the burden of this messaging in so many ways.”
Emma Cieslik (she/her) is a queer, disabled religious scholar and museum worker based in Washington, D.C.
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