“That’s just not the way language works.”
— Justice Alito challenges Colorado’s Solicitor General during Chiles v. Salazar
When Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the state’s ban on “conversion therapy” earlier this week, the discussion quickly shifted from constitutional theory to the meaning of words themselves.
Justice Samuel Alito interrupted Stevenson mid-argument about the plain wording of the law with a pointed correction:
“Are you suggesting that everything beginning with the word ‘including’ is irrelevant? You just want all of that deleted from the statute? … That’s just not the way language works. Suppose that — I mean, there’s a rule that says you may not bring any dangerous animals in the park, including pit bulls. Doesn’t that definitively provide you can’t bring a pit bull into the park?”
— Official Transcript, p. 75
The exchange exposed Colorado’s core problem with how the rule of law is functioning in our state: state and government actors are not defending the statute they enacted but the statute they wish they had.
Moments later Stevenson confirmed this to be so, stating, “This is the way we’ve interpreted the statute from the beginning of this case.”
The text being interpreted is Colorado’s 2019 prohibition on “conversion therapy” for minors, codified at C.R.S. § 12-245-227(1)(ee). The statute bars licensed mental health providers from engaging in “any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” That’s all it says. The law contains no reference to “standards of care,” “evidence-based practice,” or “accepted professional norms.” It simply forbids a specific therapeutic goal when the patient is under 18.
Yet before the Court, Stevenson repeatedly claimed the statute merely enforces professional standards—asserting that “doctors are required by law to follow the standard of care.” No such requirement exists codifying “standard of care” into law for licensees in Colorado. That is why governing bodies exist for complaint processes and courts exist for damages. The “standard of care” is a post-hoc malpractice benchmark used after harm occurs, not a statutory command applied beforehand to regulate professional conduct in real time.
By claiming that prior restraint of speech was equivalent to after-the-fact evidence-based harm reported by an individual, Colorado attempted to transform a content-based restriction on speech into a neutral regulation of conduct—a rhetorical reconstruction that allowed the state to argue policy instead of law.
In further discussions during oral arguments, Stevenson contended that words spoken in therapy are “treatment” and may therefore be regulated as medical conduct. That argument revives a “professional speech” doctrine the Court explicitly rejected in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra (2018), where the justices held that “This Court has not recognized ‘professional speech’ as a separate category of speech. Speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered by professionals.”
Under NIFLA, the First Amendment protects professionals as fully as any citizen. States may regulate fraud or coercion, but they cannot prefer one viewpoint over another under the guise of regulating “treatment.”
Colorado’s position would reinstate the very hierarchy NIFLA forbids—granting government power to decide which professional opinions may be voiced. Such logic, if adopted, would chill speech far beyond therapy rooms, reaching doctors, lawyers, and teachers alike.
When questioned on how the state would apply its law, Stevenson conceded that Colorado would enforce it only against therapy seeking to change a minor’s orientation or gender identity—not therapy that affirms it.
That admission exposes viewpoint discrimination. The statute, as defended, punishes one side of a discussion while shielding the other. Even justices personally opposed to conversion therapy signaled concern over a government selecting winners and losers in private conversation.
The episode reflects a broader pattern in Colorado governance: a growing reliance on interpretation over textual fidelity. Just weeks before the Chiles hearing, Attorney General Phil Weiser was asked at a community forum in Pagosa Springs whether he would pledge to follow the law as written for all Coloradans; he chose to be silent in response. Video his response is here: https://youtu.be/znaUJ6X_X3g?si=hcXzjGejCnr7BMQc
That choice mirrors the elected philosophy on display before the Court—that meaning is malleable, and adherence to text optional.
The Supreme Court will decide whether Colorado’s conversion therapy ban survives constitutional scrutiny. But the oral arguments already illuminated a deeper issue: whether governments may rewrite the meaning of their own laws during enforcement and throughout judicial challenges.
Justice Alito’s statement—“That’s just not the way language works”—was more than grammatical correction; it was a defense of constitutional order. Words bind power. When a state treats language as negotiable, law itself begins to erode. Our local county government has already been reprimanded for doing this in Archuleta v. Roane.
The State of Colorado did not appear in Washington to defend its statute. It appeared to defend its habit of reinterpretation. And in that courtroom—at least for a moment—the Supreme Court reminded the state, and the country, that the rule of law depends on something deceptively simple: that words mean what they say.