So today the SCOTUS declared that a ban on certain types of 'talk therapy' is unconstitutional, thus precluding the chief -- though by no means the only -- weapon in the torturers' arsenal from being banned from use.
In so doing, they have declared that it is fine for a supposed therapist to continually subject an LGBTQIA+ subject to verbal abuse. They have stated that as a free speech matter, therapists as a whole (legitimate and quacks) have the right to express their viewpoints to a patient, in part or at length.
The idea that this is just a #FreeSpeech issue is chilling, because this is not simply a matter of the therapist offering their views. What we have here is an inroad to re-normalizing a kind of abuse regularly seen before, and seen all over the place today. Looking at you here, UK.
How so? One simple reason:
Therapy is often compelled.
Think of all the kids who have been committed to therapy against their will, by their parents. Sometimes this is for the good of a kid, like if they're having enormous mental or emotional issues. In those cases, a therapist is better suited than the parents to walk the child through what's going on and assist them with their needs.
Think of all the folks who have had to go through 'therapy' of some sort or another to get life-saving medication. Gatekeepers are all over the fucking place. They are in effect denying essential care to patients because of their 'viewpoints', as quote-unquote 'talk therapy' is a part and parcel of the patient being released to take medicine.
Think of the folks who have been involuntarily committed for other reasons, and whose lives depend upon the 'talk-therapist' feeling like they're sensible to release. If a person is LGBTQ+ and the talk therapist doesn't like that, they'll not be released. Not enough progress. Backsliding. Reticence.
The Court's chief and primary compelling interest should be in the protection of the rights and lives of the people of the United States.
By allowing compelled abuse, they are promoting the enjoyment and employment of abusers in opposition to their targets and victims. They are giving the benefit of the doubt to hatemongers, in lieu of those folks most susceptible to mental, physical and emotional harms.
And they have forgotten, or decided to ignore, that compelling someone to sit and endure abuse is a means of silencing their own free expression. A violation, indeed, of 1A.
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