After the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday about a Colorado law prohibiting state-licensed therapists from offering conversion therapy to LGBTQ clients, there is one area in which the left and right can agree: A lot of LGBTQ youth struggle with feelings of shame, fear and even an urge to self-harm. But it was clear there was fierce disagreement about the source of these feelings. 

The left shares the view of the American Psychological Association, which argued in an amicus brief that this form of psychological distress in queer people, especially minors, is a result of “minority stress and stigma” and “systemic barriers to mental, physical, relational, and sexual flourishing.” This is a jargon-y way of saying that being raised to think your very identity is wrong can make a person feel bad about themselves. The treatment, then, is to counteract hateful messages with “affirming” therapy that holds that “variances in human sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression are normal.”

But to Kaley Chiles, a Christian evangelical therapist who sued the state to be able to offer conversion therapy, internalized queerphobia is an inborn quality. In her world, and presumably those of her attorney and the conservative justices, Lady Gaga’s queer anthem “Born This Way” shouldn’t be about LGBTQ identities, but about the wish of a person to “fix” whatever makes the different.

Throughout the morning, both the conservative lawyers and justices pointedly ignored the influence of church and parental pressure on struggling queer youth. Instead, they treated the desire to straight-ify themselves as something that kids are coming up with all on their own.

This fundamental mischaracterization of conversion therapy — which neither converts nor therapizes those subjected to it — was built into the case from the get-go. According to Chiles’ complaint, which was filed by the Christian right group Alliance Defending Freedom, she wants to counsel minor patients that they can “reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with [their] physical body” to better live according the way she, as an evangelical Christian, interprets the Bible.

She depicts her clients as fully autonomous, seeking to un-queer themselves on their own. According to the brief, “Chiles’s clients are also Christian and specifically seek her help because of their shared faith-based convictions and biblical worldview.” Their “internal conflict, depression, and anxiety” is ascribed solely to urges “inconsistent with their faith or values.” The children are described as “voluntary” clients 13 times in the document. Not once does Chiles acknowledge that parents may have pressured or even forced children to pursue this course. To read this brief, one would assume parents are barely involved in the process of getting a referral, setting up an appointment or deciding why therapy is even needed to begin with.

This erasure of parental influence continued throughout the oral arguments. At one point, Justice Samuel Alito posed a question to Shannon Stevenson, Colorado’s state solicitor general. “Suppose an adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist and says he’s attracted to other males, but feels uneasy and guilty about those feelings, and he wants to end or lessen them and asks for the therapist’s help in doing so?” Alito’s question presumes that teenage boys routinely visit church-linked therapists of their own accord. The justice was not happy when Stevenson said a therapist is permitted to help a client “cope with their feelings,” but that telling the kid he could un-gay his thoughts was banned.

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As it should be, of course. Even many of the most prominent leaders of the original conversion therapy movement have come to admit that the whole thing was a pile of bunk. A group of the “architects, leaders, and most vocal advocates” of the “ex-gay” movement filed an amicus brief making it clear that “conversion therapy is fundamentally ineffective” and “99.9% of participants do not experience orientation change.” But, they added, “these practices cause documented psychological harm, including increased suicide risk.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor compared it to telling a patient with an eating disorder that she needed to starve herself more. Stevenson likened it to a doctor giving a kid steroids so he could be better at football.

The ex-ex-gay leaders also noted something that Alito evaded: The role of parents in all of this. One of the hard-won lessons they learned is that “conversion therapy undermines rather than strengthens families by creating conflict and damaging parent-child relationships.” In this, they acknowledged what should be obvious, but that the conservatives conveniently forgot: Kids don’t end up in conversion therapy because of some deep, internal drive to be straight, a message sent to their heart by God himself. It’s usually because their parents and evangelical culture are pressuring, coercing and often forcing them to cure innate feelings that don’t need changed in the first place.

This oversight is interesting. Alito and the other conservative justices are well aware that right-wing parents want to impose straightness on kids in the name of religion. Last summer, Alito authored a decision arguing that parents had an expansive right to block children from accessing books in public schools that conflict with the their anti-LGBTQ beliefs. But when it comes to a queer kid being told “therapy” can change them, suddenly the parental roles disappear from the conversation.

Common sense alone tells us that conversion therapy is being driven more by parents than kids themselves, because homophobia is a learned and not in-born attitude. Research from San Francisco State University backs this up. In a revealing study, researchers found that religious leaders, right-leaning therapists and parents are the primary sources of pressure on kids to change themselves. Their findings were clear. Regardless of who initiates a conversation about sexual orientation or gender identity, “parents serve as gatekeepers to both engage in and take their LGBT children for external conversion interventions.” Even if conversion therapy is well-intended — and it very often is not — it’s experienced by children as a form of parental rejection. Unsurprisingly, suicide attempts skyrocket among queer youth whose parents insist conversion is possible.

The erasure of parents from the oral arguments had a clear, cynical purpose: To hide the fact that, ultimately, conversion therapy is a form of child abuse. Its proponents want to recast it as “help” that kids seek out themselves. In reality, it’s mostly driven by parents and religious leaders who want to force children to conform to what the adults in their lives want them to be. Parental erasure also serves to appropriate the real world stories of queer people, inverting them into a bizarre right-wing narrative. The young person trying to live an authentic life in the face of oppressive forces is a compelling narrative, one that the LGBTQ rights movement has deservedly and effectively used in persuading people to support their cause. So it’s not a surprise that the right would want to hijack it for themselves.

It just happens to be a lie.

The Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court to revisit their decision on the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship. If the Supreme Court rules against birthright citizenship, the automatic right to U.S. citizenship for children born on American soil would end.

Currently, under the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a citizen, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, except children of diplomats. A ruling against this principle would fundamentally redefine what it means to be American.

Without birthright citizenship, children born to noncitizen parents could be denied citizenship at birth. They might instead have to go through naturalization processes later in life, potentially leaving them in legal limbo or limiting access to social services, healthcare, and even public education. Experts warn this could create a generation of “stateless” or partially recognized residents with unclear legal status.

The change could also affect immigration policy and enforcement. Parents without legal status might face increased scrutiny, and states could be pressured to verify children’s citizenship before providing government benefits. Political debates would likely intensify over who qualifies as a citizen, and whether new legislation would define eligibility by parentage, residency, or other criteria.

Civil rights advocates stress that ending birthright citizenship would disproportionately impact immigrant communities, particularly Latino and Asian populations, and could spark nationwide legal challenges. Meanwhile, supporters argue it would curb so-called “anchor baby” practices and tighten immigration controls.

As the Supreme Court deliberates, families, policymakers, and legal scholars are closely watching, knowing that the ruling could reshape U.S. citizenship laws and redefine the rights of children born in the country for generations to come.

After gay marriage passed federally in 2015, I went dancing in West Hollywood with my sister and some friends. On the street in front of the country western bar Flaming Saddles (RIP), my situationship Liz and I made out in celebration. Weirdly, a man nearby whistled at us. Liz turned to him and yelled, “NOT TODAY, SIR.” He skedaddled away in shame. That day, we were invincible.

Ten years later, under Donald Trump’s fascism, whispers began that Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage, could be on the chopping block. Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples and whose trial was the impetus for the challenge of marriage equality for queer couples, has filed an appeal. Davis, a slug who came to life after a witch’s curse, kicked up panic among queer people that the Republican majority Supreme Court might take up her case.

Don’t panic yet! But Davis could win. Some other losers from the Liberty Counsel took on her “religious freedom” case, even though it is unlikely to advance to our highest court.

That being said, most everything left-wing activists have been warning could happen has happened. We have a solidly right-wing (6-3) Supreme Court who worship at the feet of an orange dictator. “We won’t allow gay marriage to be taken away!” Democrats cry. People said the same about Roe, and here we are post-Dobbs.

Justices Clarence Thomas, a sex pest who takes bribes, and Samuel Alito, a blight to Italian-Americans everywhere, have hinted at re-litigating both Obergefell and 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas (which would make queer intimate acts illegal — but only when gay people do them). Justice Thomas explicitly named Lawrence in his Dobbs concurrence. If Lawrence were overturned, states could theoretically create a legal foundation for attacking gay marriage rights as well.

I’ve crunched the numbers and Obergefell being overturned could, in my opinion, be the last straw for a new civil war. The political divide is already so deep. The right is mobilized, militarized, and declaring the left and transgender people terrorists. Where racism and xenophobia don’t move liberals to action, the cultural seems to.

I’ve been working on the ground since June with other dedicated anti-ICE activists, attending city council and police commissioner meetings, traveling to an illegal detention center in the desert, and protesting outside the Metropolitan Detention Center where ICE, DHS, and LAPD beat and arrest my friends. The numbers of us putting our bodies on the line to fight fascism dwindled after the incredible movement of No Kings Day. The next time I witnessed hundreds of people outside to protest was last Thursday in front of Disney/ABC to support Jimmy Kimmel after his show was cancelled because the Trump administration didn’t like a joke.

It was surreal to hear speakers on megaphones say Kimmel’s firing and the restriction of free speech was “a step too far,” when I’ve spent months watching Latinos be hit with batons or dragged away from their families sobbing. But sure, if this is what it takes to get liberals on the streets, then fine.

So my thought is if Kimmel mobilized the privileged and the white, then the overturning of gay marriage could spark enough outrage to match the right’s insanity about the death of Charlie Kirk. It could be what ignites the left with the same lasting fervor.

The backlash would be immediate. Sixty-seven percent of the population supports gay marriage. Gay celebrities who have been silent on Gaza or ICE would finally have to give a shit. Democrats could have success making protecting gay marriage a cornerstone of their campaigns. (It’s far more popular than abortion and less of a risk than speaking up about trans rights or Palestine.)

Politically, fortifying gay marriages would fall to the states. New England, the tri-state area, DC, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Hawaiʻi have baked in protections in state law that wouldn’t be undone by Obergefell falling. States that don’t have these protections are Alaska, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kansas, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and West Virginia. The GOP has been working overtime to pass all power to individual states over federal mandates, like with the federal anti-abortion ruling or legislation being presented to allow states to decide if they want to frack on formerly federally “protected” land. Overturning Obergefell is another step in a long path toward civil war.

The states that banned gay marriage before they were forced to recognize it federally could reinstate their dormant bans. This leaves what rights gay people have in chaotic flux. There’d be a flight from those states to the ones where gay marriage is legal, adding fuel to the civil war flames. Those who can afford to uproot their lives will do so; those who can’t will be left behind.

A big reason for gay couples to need access to spousal protections was borne out of the AIDS crisis, where long-time partners were barred from hospital rooms (but toxic, abusive family members were let in). They were thrown out of their houses and received no financial support once their partner passed.

With marriages annulled, spouses would lose the rights to those hospital visits, their inheritances, joint taxes, Social Security, and immigration sponsorship. Spouses wouldn’t easily be entitled to pensions, and exes wouldn’t get alimony or child support. States could narrow who is considered a legal parent and void adoptions. In Oklahoma and Tennessee, lawsuits have sought to restrict who can be legally listed as a parent on birth certificates. The sperm donor could become the default father, for example. Existing marriages and families would fall into legal purgatory, unless their state rules to protect the partnerships. Employers would face complicated questions about benefits and HR policies. What if one spouse works in a state that recognizes gay marriages, but one lives in a state that doesn’t? In places where gay marriage becomes illegal, existing marriage could be fine but new marriages would be blocked.

A possible saving grace is 2022’s Respect for Marriage Act which requires both state and federal governments to recognize marriages that were valid where they were performed. For example, gay billionaire and Republican donor Peter Thiel was married in Vienna, Austria, so regardless of what happens in the US, his marriage is probably fine. Rich people, even gay ones, escape the fallout of most oppressive legislation.

Gay marriage is an unlikely and unpopular issue for Republicans to go after directly. There are out gay conservatives like Thiel or Ken Mehlman. Billionaire Paul Singer’s son Andrew is gay. If these people kowtow to eliminating gay marriages as official marriages because of the Bible (and we go back to civil unions), they would still balk the loss of their or their loved one’s rights. Even the most conservative justices may not want to mess with that. They also may not spark another culture-war firestorm so soon after Dobbs and while they believe they have the moral upperhand post-Charlie Kirk.

The Supreme Court has a very cohesive 6-3 conservative majority, but justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett have not said anything specific about gay marriage. It is a political loser if said directly, but “religious liberty” carve outs for businesses and adoption agencies push us out of public life and away from resources. This could avoid the explosive backlash an outright ban would trigger.

If losing gay marriage sparks liberal action, and if Democrats ever gain power again and grow spines, bringing back or passing stronger federal gay marriage protections (like amending the Constitution or expanding RMA) would hopefully be a first order of business. They should have done it for Roe under Biden. For now, the Respect for Marriage Act provides a buffer.

If gay marriage stays legal, that doesn’t mean anti-discrimination laws aren’t being chipped away. There’s more room for people like Kim Davis, a woman whose hair probably smells like black mold, to file discrimination claims under infringement of their religious liberty. Does providing a service to a gay wedding, like catering or venue rental, violate a business owner’s religious freedom? Christian nationalism is gaining power under the eye of the Heritage Foundation, the organization responsible for Project 2025.

Let’s not be fear mongers. How likely is any of this? Not very.

We should prepare anyway. Create a will and trust so your spouse or partner can inherit any property regardless of if you are legally married. Go to a legal website like LegalZoom and make a “living will” too, on the cheap. There’s a lot of leeway in what a will looks like — it mainly needs you to be of documented sound mind and it needs your signature and those of two or three witnesses. A notary would be good, but it’s not necessary. Create an advance directive in case you are incapacitated. Make sure your spouse is listed as your medical and financial power of attorney and healthcare proxy because, if not, it defaults to your parents. That could be disastrous.

Even if both names are on the birth certificate, legal adoption provides an extra protective layer. In some states, you can get a judicial declaration of parentage as a court order, which is harder for opponents to challenge.

Check on your employee benefits. Where does your 401K or pension go if you pass? Can you keep someone on your health insurance if your marriage is now invalid? Do you have life insurance where you can leave money to each other? There are options like a joint tenancy with right of survivorship form to ensure property passes automatically. If your state seems like it would ban gay marriage, it might be a good idea to get married again in a safe state to create added protection.

I know. It’s a lot. It sucks to think about. But even if gay marriage doesn’t lose federal protection, it’s never a bad idea to create legal safety nets for your love that don’t rely on a Republican majority Supreme Court to validate.

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“We have trillions of dollars coming into our country,” Trump said Wednesday. “If we didn’t have tariffs, we would be a very poor nation and we would be taken advantage of by every other nation in the world, friend and foe.”

But two courts have now ruled that his biggest and boldest import taxes are illegal. If the Supreme Court agrees and strikes them down for good, the federal government could have to pay back many of the taxes it’s already collected from companies that import foreign products into the United States.

“We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars potentially in refunds affecting thousands and thousands of importers,” said trade lawyer Luis Arandia, a partner with the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg. “Unwinding all that will be the largest administrative effort in U.S. government history.’’

Ordinary Americans, who’ve had to pay higher prices on some products because of the tariffs, are unlikely to share in the windfall. Any refunds would go instead to the companies that paid the levies in the first place.

The refunds would also reverse the flow of tariff revenue the president has counted on to help pay for the massive tax-cut bill he signed July 4 and would threaten, he warns, to “literally destroy the United States of America.’’

At issue are revenues raised from tariffs Trump imposed this year by invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). One set of IEEPA tariffs targeted almost every country on earth after he declared that the United States’ massive and persistent trade deficits amounted to a national emergency. Another was aimed at Canada, China and Mexico and was meant to counter the illegal flow of drugs and immigrants across U.S. borders.

But a specialized federal trade court in New York ruled in May that the president overstepped his authority by ignoring Congress and imposing the IEEPA tariffs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last week largely upheld the trade court’s decision, though it also ordered the lower court to re-consider whether there was any legal fix short of striking down the tariffs completely.

The appellate judges also paused their own ruling until mid-October to give the administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court – something that it did on Wednesday. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to take up the case and hear arguments in early November.

If the high court strikes down the IEEPA tariffs, importers could be entitled to refunds. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency reports that it had collected more than $72 billion in IEEPA tariffs through Aug. 24.

For importers, Ted Murphy, co-leader of the international trade practice at the Sidley Austin law firm, said: “It’s a question of what you’re going to have to do to get the refund.

“And the options are everything from nothing — the government may just automatically refund it; I don’t think this is likely, but that’s one option. There could be an administrative process, so you have to go to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and apply for a refund of your IEEPA tariffs. Or you could have to file your own court case.’’

There’s a precedent for courts setting up a system to give companies their money back in trade cases. In the 1990s, the courts struck down as unconstitutional a harbor maintenance fee on exports and set up a system for exporters to apply to get their money back.

“Companies got refunds,’’ Murphy said. One hitch: In that case, the government did not have to pay interest on the tax it collected and had to pay back. It’s unclear whether the government would have to pay interest on any IEEPA tariff refunds.

The Trump administration might balk at paying back the tariffs it’s collected. Trump has already said he doesn’t want to pay the money back, posting on his social media site in August that doing so “would be 1929 all over again, a GREAT DEPRESSION!”

“I would anticipate that if the administration did lose, they would turn around and start arguing why it would be impossible to give refunds to everybody,” said Brent Skorup, legal fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. “I think there will a lot of litigation about the nature of refunds and who’s entitled one. And I expect the administration will raise all sorts of objections.”

To make sure they can successfully claim refunds, said Barnes & Thornberg partner Clinton Yu, “importers really need to have their records in order.’’

Adding to the uncertainty is the chaotic way that Trump has rolled out his tariffs — announcing and then delaying or altering them, sometimes conjuring up new ones. Occasionally, the administration has decided that importers that have already paid one of his tariffs don’t have to pay a different one.

Tariff are paid by importers, who often then try to pass the cost on to their customers through higher prices. But consumers would not have recourse to ask for refunds for the higher prices they had to pay.

“It’s the importer of record that is legally liable for paying tariffs and duties,’’ Arandia said. “They would be the only one to have standing to even get that money back.’’

____

AP Writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Josh Boak contributed to this story.

Kamala Harris
Democracy in America is Broken!!!

Published August 1, 2025 5:49 AM PDT