The Supreme Court’s 8–1 ruling in Chiles v. Salazar is a victory for licensed counselors and their clients. It helps reaffirm the freedom of those who seek meaning, restoration, and flourishing to set their own goals in pursuit of those ends.
Colorado’s law attempted to substitute the state’s judgment for the client’s in private conversations with counselors. The Supreme Court reminded Colorado—and other government officials who would make that same substitution—that such authority has limits.
The ruling signals that governments cannot censor speech in this way. That boundary matters not only for clients but also for those being formed to serve them. By extension, the decision will help counselors obtain the freedom to talk with their clients about religiously grounded views of sexuality, gender, and human nature found in the Judeo-Christian tradition as they go about the learning process together.
When the state serves as the gatekeeper over which beliefs are permissible, it distorts the formation of both counselors and clients.
Many understand something that has shaped Christian moral reasoning for two millennia: the order of the Great Commandment is immutable. Love of God precedes love of neighbor, not the other way around. To reverse that order is to attempt to view the eternal through the lens of the temporal—an inversion that distorts both. And many pursue counseling to help them order their lives according to these convictions. But Colorado’s law inserted its own view of that order into the counseling room and barred discussions on identity and sexuality that differed from the state’s position.
That is why Colorado’s law was so troubling. It required counselors and their clients to check certain worldviews at the counseling door. Only some opinions were allowed, said Colorado. When the state serves as the gatekeeper over which beliefs are permissible, it distorts the formation of both counselors and clients.
Counselors for children carry an important calling. Growing up is hard. Countless forces compete to shape a young person’s path. Counselors can help children navigate that path. But in the Chiles litigation, Colorado revealed that it wanted more influence over that shaping than its citizens themselves.
Augustine’s ordo amoris, the ordering of loves, remains relevant: what counselors say in the counseling environment shapes how clients order their loves. If a client expresses a desire to align those affections more closely with a Judeo-Christian worldview, shouldn’t their counselor be free to help them achieve that goal? If counselors refuse to bring faith into the counseling room when the client requests faith-integrated counseling because of fear of what the state will do, what follows for those clients? That fear undermines one of the keys to effective counseling.
The Supreme Court’s ruling protects the freedom necessary for counselors to speak messages of faith-informed conviction when desired by the client without the state prescribing which worldview is acceptable. It protects clients’ freedom to pursue the goals they themselves have determined are necessary for their flourishing.
This case reveals a broader question of whether the state may dictate the boundaries of permissible thought in the counseling room. Colorado’s law would have allowed only one set of assumptions about identity and flourishing to be expressed. The court rejected that approach, reaffirming that pluralism in the United States does not authorize the state to dictate viewpoints. That principle is essential not only for counselors but for every profession that depends on trust, judgment, and the freedom to pursue truth.
I am proud to stand alongside my colleagues at Alliance Defending Freedom and with Kaley Chiles and the counselors and clients whose courage she has served. Some may disagree with the outcome in Chiles. That is their right in a democratic republic that upholds free speech. But as eight justices affirmed, the government has no ability to demand that its conclusions about human nature and truth are the only conclusions that matter.
By affirming this boundary, the Supreme Court protected space for freedom of speech, professional integrity, and the dignity of those entering the profession. That boundary is essential to a free society—and to the flourishing of those who seek help within it.
No comments have been added.