A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled against Brian Tingley, a licensed marriage counselor represented by the anti-LGBT hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) alleging that a 2018 Washington State law banning conversion therapy for minors violated his freedom of speech and religion.

ADF attorneys argued that Tingley used “nothing but ordinary counseling methods” when addressing children’s “sexual-orientation and gender-identity struggles.” His attorneys also said that he didn’t conspire with parents to turn their kids straight. Instead, he said only worked with children who wished not to be LGBT, regardless of their parents’ wishes.

The court wrote, “In relying on the body of evidence before it as well as the medical recommendations of expert organizations, the Washington Legislature rationally acted by amending its regulatory scheme for licensed health care providers to add ‘performing conversion therapy on a patient under age eighteen’ to the list of unprofessional conduct for the health professions. “[States don’t] lose the power to regulate the safety of medical treatments performed under the authority of a state license merely because those treatments are implemented through speech rather than through scalpel,” the court added. “[Tingley] is free to express and exercise his religious beliefs; he is merely prohibited from engaging in a specific type of conduct while acting as a counselor.”

ADF lead counsel Roger Greenwood Brooks told Law and Crime that his group of course plans on appealing.

*Alliance Defending Freedom is a 501(c)(3) organization, with an IRS ruling year of 1993, and donations are tax-deductible. You can complain to the IRS by CLICKING HERE.