United States: The Supreme Court declined to hear a dispute on whether state and local governments may enforce laws against conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youngsters on Monday.
The court denied an appeal from Washington, where the law had been maintained, notwithstanding the disagreement of three conservative justices. A Florida appellate panel ruled that local limits on counselors’ speech were unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court frequently intervenes when lower courts disagree, and in separate opinions, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said the bar was easily fulfilled in the debate over conversion therapy restrictions.
According to Thomas, his colleague should have taken up the Washington case because “licensed counselors cannot voice anything other than the state-approved opinion on minors with gender dysphoria without facing punishment.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh voted to hear the case as well. Setting a case for arguments requires four of the nine justices.
Brian Tingley, a family counselor in Washington, was sued in 2018 for conversion therapy according to state law, resulting in the loss of the license.
Tingley believes the legislation infringes on his right to free speech.
Several challenges to state restrictions had previously been denied by the Supreme Court, but those cases were heard before a 5-4 ruling in 2018 in which the justices held that California could not require state-licensed anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to give abortion information according to the report by Associated Press.
In 2008, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta voided the local Florida bans.
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