Q Toon: Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Lair

He's back! And just in time for Hallowe'en.

The Supreme Court heard opening arguments in Chiles v. Salazar last week.

Kaley Chiles, who bills herself as a Christian therapist, has sued the state of Colorado over its Minor Conversion Therapy Law (MCTL), which bars mental health professionals from offering "conversion therapy," the widely discredited practice of pressuring a patient who identifies as LGBTQ+ to change their sexual orientation.

Chiles, who is a practicing Christian, contends that although she does not try to “convert” her clients, she does try to help them with objectives that may include “seeking to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions” or becoming more comfortable with their bodies. Chiles filed a lawsuit in Colorado, asking a federal court to block the state from enforcing the conversion therapy ban against her.

Colorado has not taken any action to enforce its ban against Chiles, or, for that matter, anyone else during the six years that the MCTL has been on its books, which brings into question what standing she has to bring a case to the nation's highest court. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out, "we [even] have the entity charged with administering the law saying 'We’re not going to apply it to your kind of … therapy.'" 

That didn't stop the right-wing "Alliance Defending Freedom" from bringing the case before a Court majority eager to overrule Colorado's legislature, or the Absolutely Corrupt Trump Regime™ from filing an amicus curiae brief in support. Calling Colorado's law "blatant viewpoint discrimination," Justice Samuel Alito, for one, agrees with the plaintiff's argument that while the law does allow exceptions for religious practice, it violates her freedom of speech.

Twenty other states have laws similar to Colorado's MCTL, which could very well be rendered moot by Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Comey Barrett, and Roberts, in spite of bipartisan, professional and religious condemnation of conversion practices. Even some former "ex-gay" advocates have weighed in against conversion therapy:

"We once believed that there was something morally wrong and psychologically 'broken' about being LGBTQ. We know better now. We once believed that sexual orientation or gender identity were somehow chosen or could be changed. We know better now. We once thought it was impossible to embrace our sexual orientation or gender identity as an intrinsic, healthy part of who we are and who we were created to be. We know better now...

"In light of this, we now stand united in our conviction that conversion therapy is not 'therapy,' but is instead both ineffective and harmful. We align ourselves with every major mainstream professional medical and mental health organization in denouncing attempts to change sexual orientation or gender identity."

But we now live in a country where the conspiracy fabulists in charge of the nation's health care system have not merely freedom of speech but governmental imprimatur to say Tylenol causes autism, salmonella is good for you, and gender identity is a figment of your imagination. And any medical professional who disagrees is free to find other employment whether they want to or not.

And where a majority on the Supreme Court are free to prescribe the U.S. Constitution some conversion therapy into Project 2025.