A conservative Christian is literally asking the Supreme Court to give her permission to talk to minors who are not her children about sex. And the right is more than ok with it. Shockingly, despite all their rhetoric about how no one should talk to kids about sex except for their parents, they’re on her side because she shares their ideological agenda.

That’s what’s going on with the Supreme Court case Chiles v. Salazar. The same people who believe it’s “grooming” and “sexualizing” for a teacher to read a book to children about two male penguins raising a child now want anti-science therapists to talk to kids about what God wants them to do with their genitals.

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Tearful mom pleads for Supreme Court not to end conversion therapy bans

Rightwing hypocrisy is limitless, and every conservative accusation is a confession.

In 2022, rightwing commentator Tucker Carlson said it was “common sense” not to talk to kids about their genitals because it’s “disgusting and probably illegal.” Candace Owens, formerly of the Daily Wire, said that a sex educator “should have to register as a sex offender” for telling kids it’s normal to be curious about their bodies. Fox’s Jesse Watters said that teachers talking about LGBTQ+ people to students is “the same types of behaviors that people do use when they do groom children to exploit them for sexual purposes.”

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The examples could go on and on: Those of us who have followed the right’s rhetoric on LGBTQ+ issues these past few years have just gotten used to them arguing that any mention of relationships or sexual orientation around kids is the equivalent of “grooming” children. That is, telling kids that LGBTQ+ people exist is literally preparing them to be sexually abused, if not a form of sexual abuse in and of itself.

Social media is full of conservatives justifying this position with the argument that no one except for a child’s parents should ever talk to them about sexuality, even though part of the point of sex education is to give kids the vocabulary and knowledge they need to report adults who take advantage of them, which might, unfortunately, be one of their parents.

But based on their beliefs, one would think that these same people would have a problem with Christian counselor Kaley Chiles, who is asking the Supreme Court to let her talk to minors about sex.

That’s what she’s saying pretty directly.

“This one topic was now being separated and treated differently than literally every other topic in counseling,” Chiles told the Washington Post about how she’s not allowed to try to turn LGBTQ+ kids straight, which she describes as a desire to “reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with one’s physical body.”

A discussion about sexuality where the goal isn’t to help a kid grow up to be a well-adjusted adult but to force them to be sexual in a certain way (making them “live a life consistent” with the Bible, in Chiles’ words) lends itself to abuse. And conversion therapists have something of a reputation for this.

Chiles’ argument is free speech. Talk therapy, she argues, isn’t a medical practice to be regulated by the state but a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.

And the right believes that her message to children about sex is good because she’s telling the queer ones to feel bad, while the left’s message – that everyone should generally feel good about themselves – is grooming.

That is, conversion therapy is free speech, unlike drag queen story hours, where kids might be exposed to the dangerous idea that diversity is good and it’s OK to be gay or trans. Or unlike teachers discussing famous LGBTQ+ people in history in an anti-bullying effort, which might teach kids that LGBTQ+ people can be happy and valuable members of society. Red states have tried to ban both of these forms of speech, and conservative Christians often support those bans because they don’t like the pro-LGBTQ+ message.

Pointing out that homophobes and transphobes are hypocrites is easy. They don’t like LGBTQ+ people, and saying that directly was at least considered impolite before November 2024, so they make up broad principles and rules but only apply them when they work in their favor.

Another layer of hypocrisy in this case was pointed out by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who referenced the Supreme Court’s recent Skrmetti v. U.S. decision, in which the Court’s conservatives allowed states to ban gender-affirming care for minors.

It’s a good parallel; both cases involve states banning certain healthcare procedures for minors in order to, they claim, protect them from unscrupulous healthcare providers seeking to advance their ideological point of view instead of considering what’s best for their patients.

“I’m wondering why this regulation at issue here isn’t really just the functional equivalent of Skrmetti,” Brown Jackson asked at oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar this week. “It just seems odd to me that we might have a different result here.”

The main difference is that all major medical associations are on the pro-LGBTQ+ side in both cases because that’s where the scientific evidence is. That is, if the Court is going to be inconsistent by being permissive of state laws in one case but not the other, they should do the opposite of what conservatives want and rule against state laws in Skrmetti and for state laws in Chiles.

Fundamentally, conservatives want LGBTQ+ people to stop existing, or at least have us “stop shoving it down their throats,” which for them means never hearing about or seeing us again. Making us feel too ashamed to show ourselves in public or talk about our lives, our identities, and our feelings is just one tactic in the war against our visibility.

That is their goal. Arguments about what is appropriate to do in front of minors, the First Amendment, states’ rights, the role of science in medical care… all of that is secondary to the goal of being able to raise kids to live without the knowledge that some people are different.

That’s an impossible task. Forcing LGBTQ+ people to stop existing is also the goal of conversion therapy, which we know doesn’t work because of, well, our experiences with reality, which are sometimes methodically documented and called “science.”

Instead, the most that the right can accomplish is to make LGBTQ+ kids feel ashamed of themselves for something they can’t change. That works for many on the right since, for them, it’s OK to be gay as long as you feel bad about it.

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