Two Liberal SCOTUS Justices Rule to Overturn Conversion Therapy Ban

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Colorado’s ban against so-called “conversion therapy,” finding that it was discriminatory to the viewpoints of people who want to torment LGBTQ+ people.

In an 8-1 ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, the court sided with Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor who claimed that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy violates her First Amendment rights to free speech.

“Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy, as applied to Ms. Chiles’s talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint, and the lower courts erred by failing to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny,” the ruling, written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, stated.

Gorsuch argued that Chiles’s talk therapy was not subject to restrictions on conduct, and claimed that the law’s targeting of health care professionals “changes nothing.”

“Her speech does not become conduct just because the State may call it that. Nor does her speech become conduct just because it can also be described as a ‘treatment,’ a ‘therapeutic modality,’ or anything else. The First Amendment is no word game,” he wrote.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed the lone dissenting opinion, in which she argued that the court had ignored the context in which Chiles was practicing speech. “Chiles is not speaking in the ether; she is providing therapy to minors as a licensed healthcare professional,” Jackson wrote. Therefore, Chiles was subject to the same regulation that any state exercises over medical practices.

“In concluding otherwise, the Court’s opinion misreads our precedents, is unprincipled and unworkable, and will eventually prove untenable for those who rely upon the long-recognized responsibility of States to regulate the medical profession for the protection of public health,” Jackson wrote.

Speaking from the bench Tuesday, Jackson called the decision “wrong as a matter of precedent, first principles, and history.”

More than 20 states have enacted some form of ban on so-called “conversion therapy.” Major medical organizations have unanimously said that these “therapies” are not only ineffective and unsupported by scientific evidence, but can do immense psychological harm to gay and transgender patients.

The high court’s ruling could have broader implications. By siding with Chiles, the court has suggested that sexual orientation and gender identity are mutable traits, setting them apart from other protected “suspect classifications” such as race and religion that receive the highest judicial scrutiny when challenged in court. This could signal significant reversals for LGBTQ+ rights in future cases.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump is going nuts that U.S. allies are refusing to join his war on Iran.

Italy has denied the U.S. permission for military aircraft to land at the Sigonella ​air base in Sicily before going to the Middle East, saying that it did not seek authorization and failed to consult Italy’s military leadership in accordance with the treaties that govern ​the use ​of U.S. ⁠military installations.

On Tuesday, Poland also rejected a U.S. request for the country to send a Patriot missile battery to the Middle East to help intercept Iranian missiles. Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz posted on X, “Our Patriot batteries and their armaments are used to protect Polish airspace and NATO’s eastern flank. Nothing is changing in this regard, and we have no plans to move them anywhere!”

Trump took to Truth Social Tuesday morning, ranting and complaining about the countries who don’t want to assist his ill-advised bombing campaign on Iran. In one post, he said that anyone who can’t get jet fuel because the Strait of Hormuz is closed should get it themselves.

“All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT,” Trump posted. “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil! President DJT.”

A few minutes later, Trump whined about how France wouldn’t let U.S. supply planes to Israel fly over its airspace.

“The Country of France wouldn’t let planes headed to Israel, loaded up with military supplies, fly over French territory. France has been VERY UNHELPFUL with respect to the ‘Butcher of Iran,’ who has been successfully eliminated! The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!! President DJT,” Trump continued.

Trump is only bellyaching because he unilaterally started an offensive war without consulting U.S. allies or following international law. Naturally, most countries don’t see the consequences of the war as their responsibility, especially considering that the many U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf are supposed to guard against threats to oil and gas infrastructure. Trump’s demand for other countries to “do it themselves” raises the question of why the U.S. even has those Gulf bases to begin with.

All of these countries are a part of NATO, which is above all a defense treaty organization, not one that engages in offensive wars with shifting explanations and goals. Poland, for example, needs its Patriot system to defend against Russian attacks. Trump can’t start a war and then complain that other countries won’t sacrifice to clean up his mess.

The U.S. and Israel have reportedly attacked an Iranian orphanage, killing two people and injuring five others.

The Monday strike targeted a newly built orphan charity complex in Fardis, a city about 25 miles west of Tehran, according to CNN, based on reporting from Fars News Agency, a semiofficial state news agency in Iran.

This strike marks the start of the fifth week of Donald Trump’s reckless war in Iran, where strikes have already killed at least 230 children and injured an additional 1,800, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported Sunday.

The war began with the U.S. conducting a horrific strike on a girls’ primary school in Minab that killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers. A preliminary inquiry found that the strike was the result of using outdated intelligence. What will America’s excuse for wanton violence be this time?

Trump officials are continuing to suppress photojournalists because they don’t like how they look in the pictures.

On Tuesday, Status reported that White House press secretary Karoline Leavittt hated a November photo of her, her young son, and a turkey so much that she reached out to Agence France-Presse and had it removed from their archive, which removed it from Getty as well.

The photo, taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Andrew Caballero-Reynolds at a very low angle, is pointed up at Leavitt, who is smiling in a manner that gives her a double chin, while she is holding her son. A turkey they were looking down at, “Waddle,” is also featured in frame very prominently.

AFP maintains that while the White House did tell them Leavitt didn’t like the photos, the decision to scrub them was theirs alone.

“While we were made aware that White House staff found the photo unflattering, we want to be clear that there was no formal request to remove it, nor was there any external pressure involved,” AFP’s director of brand and communications Grégoire Lemarchand told The Daily Beast. It didn’t seem like a formal, written request was necessary anyway.

This is at least the second time a Trump official—a public figure who is regularly on camera—has suppressed photos because they didn’t like how they were objectively captured. Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth banned press photographers from department briefings on the U.S. war on Iran after he too found pictures of him from multiple outlets “unflattering.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says ending the war in Iran is up to one person and one person alone: President Donald Trump. 

Speaking at a press conference Tuesday morning, Hegseth refused to say how long the U.S. and Israel’s joint military campaign in Iran would continue.

“[Trump]’s said four to six weeks, six to eight weeks, three—it could be any particular number,” Hegseth said. “But we would never reveal precisely what it is.”

“We’re well on our way,” Hegseth said, of meeting the U.S. military’s stated objectives. 

“It would be the president’s determination, and the president’s determination alone, when those objectives are complete and when it serves the interest of the American people to cut that deal. To make sure that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear capability, and ultimately that our objectives, or our interests are advanced.”

Hegseth graciously clarified that the war will wrap up within a number of weeks, as time is generally measured numerically. But as the fighting has now entered its fifth week, the likelihood of the conflict lasting just three or four weeks has decreased significantly. 

It seems clear that the bombing could stretch on for an indeterminate amount of time because Trump has absolutely no clue how to end the war he started. Hegseth’s utter refusal to lay out real parameters for Trump’s reckless military campaign allows it to be prosecuted with impunity.

Despite repeatedly claiming that the United States has entered productive negotiations with Iran, Trump practically begged other countries on Truth Social Tuesday to step in to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. During his press conference, Hegseth emphasized that this was not just a problem for the U.S. but for the world—even though it was caused by the U.S. pretty much entirely and Americans are paying for it in higher energy and food prices, surging mortgage rates, and lost jobs.  

It seems that Trump may be hoping to build an off-ramp to withdraw from the region without cleaning up the mess he made.