Colorado’s tourism slogan, “it’s our nature,” has a menacing meaning for free speech advocates. Colorado is now arguably the most anti-free speech state in the union, pushing an array of measures attacking those with opposing social and political views. The irony is that the state has proved a bonanza for free speech with spectacular legal failures that reaffirmed rather than restricted the First Amendment. Now, the Democratic legislature and governor are back with new unconstitutional measures, including a requirement that lawyers not share information with federal immigration officials as a condition for filing with state courts.
Colorado legislators and judges have spent years attacking core free speech and associational rights. In the last election, the state attempted to strip President Donald Trump from the ballot with the support of a majority of its Democratic-controlled state supreme court. (The effort was later declared unconstitutional in a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court. Colorado could not even get any of the liberal justices to support its actions).
The state is responsible for the efforts to force business owners to create products celebrating same-sex marriages. That effort led to the Masterpiece Cake Shop case and then the 303 Creative case. Even after losing earlier efforts against Masterpiece Cake Shop owner Jack Phillips, the targeting of its owner continued for years. That litigation proved to be a tremendous victory for free speech.
Colorado has also been leading the fight to limit the speech and associational rights of professionals and parents on “conversion therapy.” Recently, that effort led to another massive loss before the Supreme Court in Chiles v. Salazar, resulting in a resounding 8-1 rejection of Colorado’s position. It could only secure the vote of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
After that near-unanimous ruling against the state, Colorado responded by doubling down with legislation to expose any counselors engaged in conversion therapy to heightened legal liability, including waiving any statute of limitations. That case could also result in legal challenges as Colorado continues to spend a fortune on seeking to curtail free speech rights.
Now, the state is defending a new public accommodation law, HB 25-1312, that defines “gender expression” to include “chosen name” and “how an individual chooses to be addressed.”
As in past Colorado cases, the state secured favorable rulings from district court judges. President Biden-nominated U.S. District Judge Regina Rodriguez refused to grant a preliminary injunction against the Colorado public accommodation law.
The Alliance Defending Freedom is appealing the matter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on behalf of its clients, XX-XY Athletics and Born Again Used Books. Other appeals are also being brought in the matter.
At the same time, the state has moved forward on Senate Bill 25-276, which imposes a threshold condition for state e-filings that requires lawyers to certify annually “under penalty of perjury,” that they will not use “personal identifying information” from the system to help federal immigration enforcement.
The provision is vague on critical points in seeking to bar any information that might identify an individual or cooperating or assisting in federal enforcement. While the rule allows for compliance with federal law and court orders, it is leaves considerable ambiguity on the scope of the rule.
It is common for courts to consider specific motions to seal certain information, but such motions must state a legal basis for such withholding of information in a given case.
Lawyers have already objected to the compelled endorsement of the state’s anti-ICE policies as a condition to their representing their clients, as well as a bar on cooperating with federal authorities.
Denver Gazette investigative columnist Jimmy Sengenberger has been covering the story on limiting what is considered a public resource.
The Colorado Judicial Branch’s page on the law previously posted a statement that “In September 2025, some users may have briefly seen a certification requirement appear in the system.” It noted that the Judicial Department elected to take it down “for further internal and external discussion regarding the implementation of the new statutory requirements.” However, it announced implementation in March.
It stated that the condition would apply to any “third party” with access to the system – “certain attorneys, LLPs, and, in certain case types, pro se litigants”with access to information that is not “available to the public online, in person, or through a records request.”
It added “We recognize that some people may be frustrated by the requirements of this new legislation,” but insisted that the “judiciary is required to comply with the laws as enacted by the legislature and has worked hard to make the process as easy as possible.”
In my view, the law is facially unconstitutional and should be struck down. Regardless of the outcome on these challenges, Colorado appears hellbent on maintaining its dubious status as the most anti-free speech state in the union. Citizens will continue to subsidize this effort to defend laws compelling or censoring speech.
Colorado’s record is reminiscent of other blue jurisdictions like New York, Illinois, and D.C. in creating precedent in support of gun rights. In passing flagrantly unconstitutional gun control legislation, these Democratic legislators and governors proved a windfall for gun rights advocates in triggering a series of major Second Amendment victories, including New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen and Heller v. District of Columbia.
Colorado appears to be working to create the same legacy on the First Amendment. The state motto, “Nil Sine Numine” (Nothing without Providence), is fitting. For free speech advocates, Colorado has proven positively a godsend in its string of losses in seeking to gut the First Amendment.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
This column ran on Fox.com
Looks like it’s that time of night when the mentally ill crawl out from under their rocks and trumpet their Trump Derangement.
Just pointing out a few relevant, actual facts.
If you are a MAGA moron, the truth really sucks doesn’t it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You are braying your insanity at the moon.
DEM LEFTIST MORON is off their meds again! ha ha ha ha ha
In an eleventh-hour announcement on Tuesday night, Donald J. Trump gave himself a two-week deadline to come up with a new distraction from the Epstein files.
“Threatening to annihilate a nation of 90 million people worked for about a day, but now I need to come up with something else,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Immediately after his announcement, Trump summoned his entire Cabinet to the Situation Room to brainstorm ideas before the two-week window expires.
Distractions reportedly being considered include naming Kid Rock Attorney General, replacing Lincoln’s head on the Lincoln Memorial with his own, and putting Hannibal Lecter’s face on the dollar bill.
Lets seen now. What Dem prez use not one but two atomic bombs on Japan.
Study some history fool.
Those bombs were an alternative to killing millions of Japanese and nearly a million American soldiers in taking control of Japan. With those two bombs the Japanese learned that they could not even inflict a single injury on the attackers to make their deaths meaningful.
Trump, on the other hand, promised to murder some 80 Million Iranians. It is likely to be Steven Miller’s idea anyway. He’s been itching to see his inner Nazi tendencies put to the real world.
Not only has TACO Trump chickened out yet again by “postponing” the attack on Iran for 2 weeks, he has handed them a huge strategic victory.
Trump has also agreed to lift ALL sanctions on Iranian oil, including those sanctions going all the way back to the Bush administration.
So now, Iran is very much in the driver’s seat.
They have absolute control of the Strait of Hormuz, and they are free to ship out as much oil as they can pump to any willing buyer at prices that have doubled in the past couple of weeks.
Putin will be celebrating tonight !!!!
Trump is a total sucker and has played right into Putin’s hands, and the hands of his ally Iran.
Trump is basically Putin’s stooge at this point.
What exactly would he be doing differently if he wasn’t working for Putin ????
Trump is an amazing president. Iran is nothing but a totalitarian form of government using religion as a cover. It rules over slaves with death and control of the next life. Complete slavery…
Trump is incredible. What a corker. 😂
Exactly as I predicted earlier at 1:54pm today, TACO Trump chickens out yet again.
Deadline for attack on Iran extended for 2 weeks, at which time he will chicken out yet again.
What a joke !!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
From your general attitude I perceive that you would prefer to wait until Iran or one of their proxies shoves a nuke up our backside.
Apparently, Trump also prefers to wait for that to happen since he is not prepared to actually do anything of significance to prevent it.
He makes a big deal of bloviating about what he WILL do, but he never actually does it.
He always chickens out.
Of course we can simply sit on our hands waiting until the Israelis get upset enough to muke Iran.. Then the fat WILL be in the fire.
The underlying problem is that our plliticians are not afraid of the governed.
Oldfish, that is a sharp observation and I agree it captures where we are. I would just add that what you are describing is the symptom. The root problem is formation. When citizens lose the habits and backbone of self government, politicians stop fearing the governed and start managing them instead.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
Time for stout oak and strong hemp, torches and pitchforks, resolve, not mercy
A refined and relevant addition to the ongoing dialogue.
Save us from ideologues of every persuasion.
Colorado was once such a wonderful red state with a communist blue island on the Front Range east of the Flat Irons. The Republic of Boulder unleashed a blue tsunami across the rest of the Front Range cities and resort counties, wiping out the hardworking, multi-generational Coloradan conservatives. Completely californicated.
In other words, what you are saying is that Colorado realized the error of its ways and came to its senses.
Yeah, if “coming to your senses” means going from reasonable, freedom-loving people to Communist dictators.
“The Republic of Boulder unleashed a blue tsunami ”
The idle rich coke heads who patronized Aspen and the other exclusive ski resorts didn’t help matters any…
While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be
What is the Corinthians verse , think on these things,whatever is beautiful, true, of good report..
Look it up, anon, and do it.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
The freedom of speech is unqualified and absolute, including defamation as slander, which is speech.
The judicial branch enjoys only the judicial power—the power to judge—not the power to legislate, modify, interpret, amend, or amend by interpretation.
The judicial branch has no constitutional power to rule by “precedent” or “doctrine,” which are arbitrary deviations from the “manifest tenor” of the Constitution.
At some point, the Founders’ codified concept of unqualified free speech must be upheld by the citizenry despite, and circumventing, the anti-American dictatorship of the corrupt judicial branch, which apparently cannot read the English language.
People must adapt to freedom; freedom does not adapt to people—dictatorship does.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
“…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
“…men…do…what their powers do not authorize, [and] what [their powers] forbid.”
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
_________________________
1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;….
OT
The gender-specific Moon Fly-By and Affirmative Action Tour is carrying DEI PASSENGERS, distinctly not predominant flyers and pilots.
The men who got America to the moon knew all about rocketry, flying, critical systems, and math and were self-reliant while all alone in the middle of nowhere and utterly adroit at crisis management.
This propaganda “Can’t we all just get along?” civil rights malarkey is a space sham.
It is a “fake” Kumbaya indoctrination campaign and an inordinately expensive joke!
I love when the stereotypical Turdley reader identifies himself as the sexist, racist bigot that he is. Kudos for your honesty, sir.
Looks like a false-flag op, and you just responded to yourself. Pretty obvious, but thanks for trying.
You tell yourself whatever you need so that you can look in the mirror each morning, toots.
Does the Constitution prohibit opinions on any or every subject?
Kudos on your “dictatorship of the proletariat,” comrade.
While I have you here, were you also in favor of “force-busing,” the title of which has been “fundamentally transformed” into forcible “Desegregation Busing,” a wholly unconstitutional program executed by none other than the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court, the singular American failure?
Forced Busing, subsequently doctored to “Desegregation Busing,” was, in fact, ridiculous, glaring, flagrant, and abject dictatorship executed by the co-executive judicial branch, the “dictatorship of the Black-Robed Juristocracy.”
Of course, “Forced Busing” and “Forced Desegregation” are egregious violations of the Constitution, freedom, and free people, as is the entire communist American welfare state.
People must adapt to freedom; freedom does not adapt to people—dictatorship does.
Thank you so much. I wondered if that would be misunderstood.
I love when the liberal identifies themself as ignorant and stupid, which is every liberal comment I have ever read.
If liberal policy is so good why do they have tho ban the opposing views? You should thank Mr. Turely for letting you spout you rubish everyday and not banning you.
Do you even understand why he doesn’t ban your stupid blather? It’s because he believes in free speech, unlike the authoritarian liberals.
I can same the same for every conservative comment I have ever read. Particularly impressed by your ignorance and hate.
“…and hate?”
So, all people are ordered by the “Black-Robed Dictatorship” to “love” Fran?
Certainly people are not ordered to do that by the Constitution.
Clearly, you hate all rational, law-abiding, actual Americans.
Whom else must people love: Rodney King, Cesar Chavez, George Floyd, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, or O.J. Simpson?
Professor Turley believes that libel—speech that is defamation—may be abridged.
It’s on the spectrum of normal.
Quite looking forward to Trump’s major humiliation tonight.
Iran has announced that they have cut off all negotiations and communication with Trump. This is a brilliant strategic move. TACO Trump undoubtedly planned to announce a postponement of the big attack tonight as a result of a “last minute breakthrough in negotiations”, which of course would be a completely bogus cover story for chickening out. Iran has effectively eliminated that claim by preemptively announcing that all negotiations have ceased. Therefore, when he inevitably chickens out of the big attack, he will be completely humiliated.
On top of that, it looks like the Democrats will take Marjorie Taylor Greene’s old seat in today’s special election.
A double whammy of humiliation.
Get your popcorn ready.
Who is “Iran,” comrade, because the MSM has reported that all the leaders are dead?
Are you talking about the vegetable in the “ICU” being prepared for organ donation?
Moslems cannot donate organs but can receive organs from the unbelievers, the animals.
…and if the strikes go forward and Iran the successor of the mighty Persian Empire becomes bereft of all electric generation and becomes a nation of goat herders what then comrade?
Then your orange god-king and his drunkard secretary of defense get to be tried for war crimes under the next administration.
You leftists just won’t be satisfied until you provoke a civil war.
Hey chief – not sure if you were aware – but Trump is the one who has defamed Democrats repeatedly – calling them “scum,” “vermin,” and “animals.” Show me a Democratic President that ever said the same about the GOP. Your guy got elected fair and square – but he’s a war criminal now. If he doesn’t want to do the time, he shouldn’t have done the crime. Have a good one.
Trump uses that language about politicians, not the people who vote for them. The Dems use it about the voters who don’t vote for Dems – bitter clingers, basket of deplorables, MAGA fascists, garbage, threat to democracy, etc.
Politicians have the right to do so, but if your point is about defaming people, that’s an important difference.
OldManFromKS,
Well said. I seem to recall a Democrat presidential candidate who declared “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it.”
I seem to recall recently a number of Democrats claiming all kinds of things about Trump supporters being Nazis, ICE being called thugs, and other things. Others calling on people to be hunted down like Nazis or treated like Nazi sympathizers.
Back in the day I thought Trump’s portrayal of MSM was a bit over the top . . . but then MSM proved him right. And continue to do so.
Spot on, Old Man. And so happy to find your comment buried in the string of Anonymous posters. Prof. Turley needs to ban same user name profiles. Tiresome.
Yeah! Who would want to do any harm to savages who run around the Middle East and the world chopping people up for Allah? Lord knows they are NOT committing “war crimes” because the brutal murder of masses at a concert, etc., is distinctly not war, right?
Could you come back tomorrow so we can discuss your crazy theories in hindsight?
Those the IR murdered will be getting their revenge.
No need to wait until tomorrow.
Exactly as I predicted, TACO Trump chickens out on attacking Iran.
What a joke !!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Beer For My Horses, Toby Keith
Willie, man, come on the 6 o’clock news
Said somebody’s been shot, somebody’s been abused
Somebody blew up a building, somebody stole a car
Somebody got away, somebody didn’t get too far, yeah
They didn’t get too far
Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he done
Take all the rope in Texas find a tall oak tree
Round up all them bad boys, hang them high in the street
For all the people to see
That justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys, you got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles we’ll sing a victory tune
And we’ll all meet back at the local saloon
We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces singing
Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses
Colorado: Giving California a run for most retarded state.
California is the most “invaded” state. Please send in the 101st Airborne. Americans have been overrun. Fire Mission: Danger Close – Fire On My Position.
“Colorado’s record is reminiscent of other blue jurisdictions like New York, Illinois, and D.C. in creating precedent in support of gun rights. … Colorado appears to be working to create the same legacy on the First Amendment.” Given the legal track record as Prof. Turley lays out, it would seem that there should be a dawning awareness among the various state legislators and state courts of how ironically counter productive their state’s efforts are to the causes that they hold so dear. If not the state officials, then perhaps some high powered lobbyists and donors would rethink how they spend their time and money.
It does strike me how we, the people and our institutions, need to be on guard for our freedoms because it is clear and disappointing to me that certain values that inimical to our system have become too prevalent. If we accede to these new values, then we will have squandered our heritage.
Arnold, you are exactly right about the irony. Colorado and its peers are not just creating precedent for rights they dislike, they are also exposing how thin our civic culture has gotten. When lawmakers keep walking into 8–1 and 9–0 buzzsaws, you would think donors and activists might notice they are spending a lot of money to strengthen the very protections they wanted to weaken.
That is the wake up call for the rest of us. The Bill of Rights is still doing its job, but it cannot make up for a public that shrugs at illiberal habits. If we normalize hostility to free speech and equal treatment, we will eventually elect judges and legislators who reflect that. The safeguards are only as strong as the people willing to enforce them. If we quietly go along, we really will end up trading a hard won inheritance for whatever happens to be fashionable this news cycle.
Olly & Arnold – don’t forget the interests involved here. Just as economic actors seek to maximize wealth, legislative actors seek to maximize their chance of re-election.* They do things to win political brownie points with their constitutents, and then they can say they tried but the courts got in their way. They likely care very little about the actual precedent being set by a string of Supreme Court rulings.
*This is a basic premise of public choice theory.
Oldman, that is a great point about incentives. These folks are so tunnel visioned on racking up brownie points with their base they cannot see the forest that is blossoming all around them. From their angle, a law that dies 9 to 0 at the Court still “worked” because they got the press release, the fundraising email, and a story to tell at the next town hall about how they “fought.”
What they do not care about is the case law they leave behind. The rest of us are looking at a growing line of precedents that make it harder and harder to run the play they keep calling. That is the irony. Public choice says they are acting rationally for their own careers. Constitutional reality says their short term wins are pouring more concrete around the very rights they keep trying to chip away.
Olly, one additional factor that probably have thought of, given your focus on civic formation, is to ask why a politician would perceive (correctly) that he will win political brownie points by promising to chip away at civil rights. It seems to me a lot of indoctrination has to take place for a state’s population to largely favor that course of action.
Oldman, that is the heart of it. You do not get legislators winning points for chipping away at civil rights unless the citizens have been formed to see that as virtue. That takes years of schooling, media, and professional culture all training people to treat “safety” and “equity” as higher goods than liberty.
So yes, there is a lot of indoctrination in the background. But that is also why these Colorado losses matter. Every time the Court pushes back, it forces a fresh round of civic education. Voters and younger citizens get one more chance to see the conflict in the open and decide whether they want a country built on comfort or a country built on rights.
Olly – agreed, and well said. Ditto for your 1:37 comment below.
It’s easy to talk about ‘hard-won inheritances’ from a distance, but the lawmakers Arnold is criticizing are trying to protect actual people from harm—whether it’s conversion therapy or being denied service. To them, ‘quietly going along’ with discrimination is a far greater threat to civic culture than losing a court case while trying to do the right thing.
but the lawmakers Arnold is criticizing are trying to protect actual people from harm
That’s the siren-song of all totalitarians. I’ll protect you from harm, but you have to give up your freedom.
OldManFromKS,
Quite right.
Leftist totalitarians: IF you do not allow me to cut off healthy organs, administer life altering drugs to your children without your knowledge or consent, I will pass laws to take you child away from you!
IF you do not bake cakes like I want you to, against your will, I will pass laws to put you out of business!
IF you do not use words like I want you to, I will pass laws to make it a HATE CRIME!!
And then they say with smile, “It is all for your protection from yourself!”
Upstate – X was trying to distract with claims about “discrimination.” In fact, nobody is forced to submit to therapy. The Colorado law outlawed a transaction between two willing participants: the client who wanted a certain type of talk therapy and was willing to pay for it, and the therapist who was willing to provide it. The law basically said: You may engage in talk therapy with same-sex attracted people, but you may only confirm that such attraction is good for the patient, you may never engage in speech with a different viewpoint than that.
The Supreme Court correctly ruled (8-1) that that amounts to viewpoint discrimination inconsistent with the First Amendment. All the claims about nobody ever having been helped by the outlawed speech, and always having been harmed by it, are not only false,* but beside the point.
*There are first-hand testimonies of people who have been helped by it, such as the gentleman in Malta. And again, nobody is forcing anyone to get the therapy against their will.
Why is it always that conservatives focus on one another’s genitals. Especially children’s.
We do not focus on children’s genitals. We want them to stay where they are, and covered.
It is far leftists who want those genitals mutilated. They are the ones obsessed with the removal of healthy organs. They are the ones obsessed with having pornography in elementary school libraries. They are the ones who want laws to take children away from their parents if they are not allowed to mutilate children.
Dont blame us for leftists perverse obsessions. We are the ones trying to protect children from leftist harm.
Each person who runs for office stands there and takes an oath. That used to mean something. In too many Colorado and Democrat run governments, the only part that seems to register is I will support the and in their heads they finish the sentence with voters who put me here, not the Constitution that limits them. They treat the oath as a loyalty pledge to a base, not a leash on their own power.
That is why I keep coming back to civic formation. The ceiling of government competence is set by the floor of the citizen’s capacity for self government. If voters do not understand or care what that oath really requires, they will keep sending people to office who treat rights as optional and the Constitution as a prop.
Perhaps the economic system taught them to be quiet with head bowed or boss man wouldn’t give them a job so they could feed their families. They hadn’t self government and learned boss man really governed them. Ya think, Golly?
Rocky Mountain High that’s what I suppose is the major under lying problem in Colorado. Joyful bliss and inflated worth (intellectual that is) when you whiff the mountain air and see nirvana in your mind’s eye.
The United States as the name indicates is a union of states chartered by a constitution and bill of rights that hold the United States charter supreme and the states therein inferior. It seems that mountain air changes meanings of words here-before written into law or put in stark terms “we can change whatever we want to our Truth”.
Including a few thoughts.
Theognis:
“Opinion, indeed, is a great evil to men. But experience a very excellent thing: many of the bettermost men have an opinion unproved by experience.”, or as Ai’s takeaway put it: ‘value experience and evidence; recognize that moral worth and epistemic justification are distinct.’
The Aesop tale of the Framer and the Snake is apropos. The Farmer’s in his last breath, “I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel!” with the moral being ‘The greatest benefits do not bind the ungrateful’.
The Democratic Party could be defined as a modern-day Hydra serpent, when one feeble brained numskull is removed another pops into place.
Justice Jackson was right. So-called “conversion therapy” is nothing but religiously-driven animus against gay people that is condemned by the mental health professionals not just because it is ineffective, but because it is dangerous. From the American Psychological Association:
“What does psychological research show about “conversion therapy?”
Decades of psychological research reveal these efforts are largely ineffective and pose serious risks of harm:
A 2020 review study in Clinical Psychology: Science and Practiceopens in new window found that reported success claims often contain methodological limitations, such as biased recruitment or a retrospective design, that weaken the validity or prevent the generalizability of results. Many studies report negative outcomes associated with SOCE and GICE, such as depression, relationship dysfunction, and increased homonegativity.
A 2015 study in the Journal of Counseling Psychologyopens in new window surveyed 1,612 people who underwent sexual orientation change efforts and found that only 3.2% reported even slight changes in sexual orientation.
APA’s 2009 task force review (PDF, 1.1MB)opens in new window found insufficient, low-quality evidence that conversion practices reliably change sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The state has the duty to regulate health care to protect its citizens. “Freedom of speech” is not implicated in “conversion therapy” because the issue is not expressing an opinion, but treating something that right-wing religious zealots falsely believe is a pathological condition. Scientific studies prove that the brains of gay people show differences from those of straight people:
Excerpted from “Scientific Reports” Brain Structure Changes Associated With Sexual Orientation”, March 3, 2021:
“We examined potential cerebral structural differences linked to sexual orientation in a group of 74 participants, including 37 men (21 homosexual) and 37 women (19 homosexual) using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Gray matter volumes (GMV) were compared with respect to sexual orientation and biological sex across the entire sample using full factorial designs controlling for total intracranial volume, age, handedness, and education. We observed a significant effect of sexual orientation for the thalamus and precentral gyrus, with more GMV in heterosexual versus homosexual individuals, and for the putamen, with more GMV in homosexual + than heterosexual individuals. We found significant interactions between biological sex and sexual orientation, indicating that the significant effect for the putamen cluster was driven by homosexual women, whereas heterosexual women had increased precentral gyrus GMV. Heterosexual men exhibited more GMV in the thalamus than homosexual men. This study shows that sexual orientation is reflected in brain structure characteristics and that these differ between the sexes. The results emphasize the need to include or control for potential effects of participants’ sexual orientation in neuroimaging studies. Furthermore, our findings provide important new insights into the brain morphology underlying sexual orientation and likely have important implications for understanding brain functions and behavior.”
Gigi, gigi, gigi. The First Amendment is still law. It protects your free-speech rights, and those of everyone else. Your seriously distorted view of a type of talk-therapy that some people actually want and benefit from, does not override the protections of the First Amendment. One of which is that the government cannot engage in viewpoint discrimination when it regulates speech, allowing speakers to articulate the government’s position on a particular issue, but punishing anyone who expresses a dissenting view on that same issue. I know that is a hard pill for totalitarian-minded people to swallow, but it is the law of the land in the USA. Perhaps you would be happier in North Korea?
Stop calling me “Gigi”. Tell me: would it be appropriate for right-wing religious zealots to tell school age children to drink strichnine or handle rattlesnakes because the Bible says that if you are a true believer, you won’t be harmed? How about suggesting to teeage boys that they should gouge out one of their eyes if they lust after girls? That’s in the Bible, too. As a matter of fact, people get admitted to mental health inpatient units all of the time because they try to gouge out one of their eyes or try to cut off a hand because they thought it was what God wants them to do to prevent them from sinning.
“Conversion THERAPY” is touted as a mental health treatment. Being gay is not a mental illness, except in the view of right-wing ignoramuses who don’t accept science. Mental health treatment of all kinds are regulated by the states, which require appropriate licensure to provide THERAPY of any kind–be it surgical, physical, occupational, or even palliative. There are no “free speech” issues involved here. Telling gay people that they need THERAPY is a lie–based on right-wing religious bigotry. It’s not a matter of viewpoint discrimination. It’s not a topic for dissenting views. Right wing religious groups push parents of gay children to force them into “conversion therapy”, which is harmful. Gay people are not mentally ill. From the “Williams Institute of Law”, UCLA:
“LGB people who have undergone conversion therapy almost twice as likely to attempt suicide
A new report by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds that non-transgender LGB people who experienced conversion therapy were almost twice as likely to think about suicide and to attempt suicide compared to their peers who hadn’t experienced conversion therapy.
Using a representative sample of sexual minorities in the U.S., researchers examined whether experiencing conversion therapy is associated with suicidal ideation and attempts among non-transgender (cisgender and gender non-binary) sexual minority people, including lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and people who use other identity labels, such as queer.
Findings show 7% of LGB adults age 18-59 in the U.S. have experienced conversion therapy. The investigators also asked whether people received conversion therapy from a religious advisor, a health care provider, or both. An estimated 81% of people who have had conversion therapy received it from a religious leader, and 31% received it from a health care provider.
Conversion therapy is a discredited practice intended to change the sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression of LGBT people.
“Rather than being therapy, so-called ‘conversion therapy’ is a minority stressor that reinforces stigma and conveys that being LGB is abnormal, sinful, and should be rejected,” said study senior author Ilan H. Meyer, Distinguished Senior Scholar of Public Policy at the Williams Institute. “We found that people who undergo conversion therapy are at increased risk of suicide ideation and attempts. This is a devastating outcome that goes counter to the purpose of therapy.””
@Anonymous
That would be easier of Gigi wasn’t one of your previous user names.
Not a Binary Distinction: The differences are statistical trends across groups, not defining characteristics of every individual’s brain.
Opposite-Sex Similarities: Some studies find that certain areas of the gay brain show patterns similar to heterosexuals of the opposite sex, but this is not universal.
Environmental Factors: Sexual orientation is likely influenced by a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and environmental factors, not just rigid, universal brain structures.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
+2
On the flip side, anon, there are people in disagreement with the lgbt’s efforts in social engineering, imposing lgbt social constructs upon others and everyone.
If your efforts continue presumably bakeries will be burned and bakers flogged. The law is holding for now. Presumably conservatives are the new jews. What insignia will they wear? A yellow crucifix?
“Justice Jackson was right.”
OK, no crazy conspiracy theories here please.
The Bee is reporing that the Supreme Court is begging Colorado to just be normal for once.
http://babylonbee.com/news/supreme-court-begs-colorado-to-please-just-be-normal-for-once
It also reports other Colorady news:
– Colorado rules Jews must bake cake for terrorists who lit them on fire
– Colorado Supreme Court overturns Hunter Biden conviction
– In 2024, Colorado banned Trum pfrom running over concerns taht the usual election rigging system could fail
– Colorado also ordered Jack Phillips to bake a cake celebrating the Colorado Supreme Court’s Trump ruling
– Colorado baker faces long line of people outside waiting to be oppressed
– Colorado Civil Rights Commission updates mission statement to simply read, ‘Destroy Jack Phillips’
– Colorado baker forced to bake cake celebrating the possible colsure of his own business
– ‘Trump can’t, like, run in the election, man’ says Colorado judge munching on funyuns enveloped in cloud of somke
– Colorado authorities warn marijuana consumption could lead to attending Rockies games
– Colorado saves democracy by not allowing people to vote for their preferred candidate
Is lighting Jews on fire a “War Crime?”
Or may “War Crimes” only be perpetrated by white people, primarily Americans?
OldManFromKS,
This reads like a Bee headline but is is not, States with the most adults still living with parents — California is among the ‘worst’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/states-with-the-most-adults-still-living-with-parents-california-is-among-the-worst/ar-AA20iuWD
The FL one was kinda surprising but then thinking on it, some elderly people have their children living with them as caregivers as a in home nurse is too expensive.
Extended families are on the spectrum of normal.
Colorado is starting to look like the most accidentally conservative state in America on the Constitution. On TV they sell you the “it’s our nature” brand and play the usual blue-state soundtrack about hate, harm, and “misinformation.” But if you watch what actually happens in court, you’d think they were running a secret clinic for the First Amendment. Every time they go after some counselor, some cake baker, some web designer, they walk the case right up to the Supreme Court and get smoked. And every time they lose, the law that comes back is stronger for speech and weaker for censors.
People used to joke about Trump that if he came out in favor of breathing air, Democrats would just hold their breath to prove a point. Colorado feels like the flip side of that. If you wanted to harden constitutional protections, what would you do. You’d pass every bad free speech idea you could dream up, crank it to eleven, and dare the Court to stop you. That’s what they’re doing. They try to script your pronouns, they try to script what therapists can say to clients, now they’re trying to make lawyers swear they will not help ICE if they want to use the courts. It’s like they sat down and asked “how could we make the cleanest test case for viewpoint discrimination and compelled speech” and then called it a bill.
So on paper, Colorado is the blue lab for controlling language and punishing the wrong beliefs. In practice, they’re building the case law that’s going to protect people who disagree with them long after these politicians are gone. New York and D C did that for gun rights with Heller and Bruen. Colorado is doing it for the First Amendment now. They keep trying to gut free speech and end up handing it a bodyguard. That’s the joke. They think they’re saving the country from bad ideas. What they’re really doing is reminding the country that the Constitution still bites.
OLLY,
Well said and you comment made me chuckle a few times. re: “how could we make the cleanest test case for viewpoint discrimination and compelled speech” and then called it a bill.”
Just another example of absurd far leftists thinking that will likely get slapped down by the SC.
How marvelous!
Upstate, that is what keeps me oddly hopeful in a pretty rough moment. The same bad ideas we are complaining about are turning into a giant civics class in real time. When blue states try to script speech or weaponize process, they are forcing real constitutional fights out into the open where normal people can see them and argue about them. You can feel it on this blog. Folks are not just trading slogans. They are talking about compelled speech, due process, federalism, what the Court actually said, not what the headlines pretended it said. That is civics literacy, the real thing. Slowly, case by case, the law keeps slapping down the worst abuses and the rights we were told were outdated are actually getting sharper and more secure. It is ugly on the surface, but underneath it is the Constitution reminding everyone it is still in the room.
And I would add one more bit of snark to the silver lining. Colorado is doing its part with bad laws, and the anti Trump, anti conservative crowd on this blog is doing the same kind of work in the comments. Every time they sneer at rights talk or cheer on censorship, they hand the rest of us a clean example of what we are warning about. In that sense, they are a blessing, not a curse. They supply the real time exhibit A. Colorado writes the test cases for the courts. These folks write the test cases for public opinion. Put the two together and you get exactly what the Founders hoped for. A free people watching live, arguing hard, and slowly relearning why those old guarantees are there in the first place.
Olly – I find it interesting how things have changed. I remember the days of the free speech movement in Berkeley. During that era, the left-wing of the Democrat party was all about civil rights and freedom of speech, and opposed to government restrictions. The right-wing was for law and order and scorned civil rights that would interfere with efficient law enforcement. In roughly 60 years we have a complete swap. The left passionately hates free speech, and is all for big government tightening the screws on anyone who disagrees with the official state ideology. The right wing is now on the front lines fighting for free speech and civil rights. Why this change? Hard to know for sure, but perhaps it relates to the fact government institutions have now largely been captured by the neo-Marxist Left, so they’re in charge and they don’t brook dissent.
Oldman, you captured the flip perfectly. The kids who once chained themselves to police cars in Berkeley over free speech would be the ones writing speech codes today. Power changed hands and so did the attitude toward dissent. The common thread is not left or right. It is who controls the institutions. When the left was on the outside it wanted limits on government. Now that its ideology runs a lot of the bureaucracy and culture, it wants limits on us.
Olly, I think this must have played out multiple times in history in various societies around the world. I remember in the 1990s when “tolearance” was the big buzz word, a friend of mine who had looked into the matter told me that some form of the “tolerance” concept has been used in other societies to flip who’s in power, and then it is purposely retired once the tolerance-mongers (for lack of a better term) are in charge.
In this regard, it is interesting to me that “tolerance” no longer has the currency it used to. Now it’s “equity,” “social justice,” “antiracism,” and “antifascism.” So the neo-Marxists know that preaching tolerance does not benefit their grip on power, for obvious reasons. Social justice, like most things with “social” at the beginning, is code for socialism. And the anti’s are basically the very thing they claim to be anti. So in those instances, they’re feeling their oats, and they are now full-on 1984, forcing people to say that two and two make five or suffer the wrath of the State.
Oldman, that is a sharp read on how the slogans change when power changes hands. “Tolerance” was useful when they needed room to get in the door. Once they took over the institutions, tolerance had to go because it cuts both ways. You cannot keep power if you have to tolerate people who think you are wrong.
So the language shifted to equity, social justice, antiracism, antifascism. All the new “anti” labels are handy because they define you as the good guys up front and paint any dissent as moral corruption or hate. It is the same old project, just with fresher branding. In the end, it is not about two and two making four, it is about proving you are loyal enough to say “five” when they tell you to. That is exactly why we need Colorado and the courts to keep hardening the guardrails, even when it hurts on the front end.
OLLY and OldManFromKS,
That was a very interesting series of comments especially how those who seek power, change their language once that power has been achieved.
The good professor has noted more than a few times how the far leftists in the Democrat party have become the New Jacobins.
Upstate, I was not planning to harp on formation today, but if you look back over the last few weeks of posts and comments, it really is the thread running through all of it. You can call out Newsom’s boondoggles, Colorado’s assaults on speech, the trolls here, the media spin, the New Jacobins in D C, but upstream of every one of those problems is formation. How we raise citizens, what they are taught to love, what they are taught to fear, and whether they ever learn what self government actually requires. Change that, and a lot of the downstream madness starts to look very different.
Over the years on this blog, it has also hit me that none of what we are fighting about is really new. The facts on the ground change, but the results look like history on a loop. You can read the list of grievances in the Declaration as “facts submitted to a candid world” and still recognize the pattern today. Power concentrating, rights brushed aside, rulers treating limits as optional. The details are different, but the DNA of the abuse is the same, which is why formation ends up being the fight behind every other fight.
“I remember the days of the free speech movement in Berkeley. During that era, the left-wing of the Democrat party was all about civil rights”
The hard left wasn’t advocating free speech as much as they were trying to break the fabric of the nation. Stalin dismantled traditional social structures to break tradition and then impose his own:; atomization of culture and traditions.
Fair. I was thinking of the ACLU and Berkeley hippies.
I stopped supporting the ACLU many years ago as the hard left started moving into their board. If you remember, Nat Hentoff dropped his board position.
Prisoners dilemma
Golly
OLLY,
As I have stated before here on the good professor’s blog more than a few times, generally I just scroll past the trolls as their comments are generally worthless. However, occasionally I will read them as they do give insight into their thinking. I then note, how many times have they been right about anything? How many times did Dennis make various claims that never came to pass? Gigi/Natasha? How they re-write history to match their distorted version of reality? It would be one thing if it just were a few wackos but dang near half of America has the same delusions. This past weekend I was out of town visiting family (you may have noticed my absence in the comment section). My father picked up the NYT to read. I skimmed through it. One article caught my attention about how the failed state of CA’s gov Newsome was supposedly in the “Manosphere.” It was a gushing vanity article about how “manly” he was.
It was nauseating.
And a complete distortion of reality.
They never once touched on his failures as governor, the hot mess that is the bullet train to nowhere. All the fraud that has happen and is on going in the failed state of CA. The mass exodus from the state of not old the very rich but of the middle class.
Upstate, that Newsom “manosphere” puff piece is exactly why I read the trolls and the legacy press with the same filter. Not because they are ever right, but because they tell you what story they need people to believe. In their version, California is still a model and Newsom is some kind of swaggering success story. In the real world, the U Hauls are pointed one way and the “bullet train” is a half built monument to graft.
Chris Bray’s piece at The Federalist walks through how the train, the wildlife bridges, and the boutique rail lines barely function as transportation but work perfectly as money hoses for unions, NGOs, and political friends. That gap between the glowing narrative and the busted reality is not an accident. It is what keeps half the country in the same delusions you just described.
https://thefederalist.com/2026/04/06/60-minutes-undersold-the-madness-of-californias-train-building-disaster/
You just rewrote Turley’s opinion and tossed in a heap of irrelevance for good measure. Great job.
The additional points are only irrelevant to a low-IQ moron who can’t figure out their relevance. Congrats, you just identified yourself as a moron.
Thank you, I appreciate the honorable mention. Glad you read it. Don’t fret, perhaps someday you too may actually comprehend it.
Interesting theory, but it mistakes governing for instigating. Colorado isn’t trying to ‘build case law’ for its opponents; it’s attempting to solve real-world problems like medical malpractice, discrimination, and data privacy.
Every time the state loses a case like 303 Creative, the result isn’t just ‘stronger speech’—it’s a more fractured society where ‘open to the public’ no longer means ‘open to everyone.’ Colorado isn’t ‘accidentally conservative’; it is intentionally trying to uphold the 14th Amendment’s promise of equal protection, even when the current Court is more focused on the First Amendment’s exceptions.
This isn’t about making lawyers “swear an oath” to a political ideology. It’s an administrative “Terms of Use” for a state-owned database.
The point is Colorado has a constitutional right (under the 10th Amendment) to ensure its judicial resources aren’t co-opted as an unpaid arm of federal administrative enforcement. If a state can’t control how its own non-public data is used, then “state sovereignty” is a myth. I’m sure on that point we would be in agreement Olly.
X, I get that you want to drill down into every procedural and semantic rabbit hole. I am not going to chase you there. My point is simple. Colorado can govern under the Tenth and the courts can check it under the Supremacy Clause when it crosses constitutional lines. That is what we are watching, and I am content to let that record speak for itself.
Fair enough. We clearly see the threshold for that ‘constitutional line’ differently, but I’m happy to let the legal record settle the debate. We’ll see how it unfolds.
But I still think you’re missing the point entirely.
I am not above missing a point. But looking at Colorado’s record, I am pretty confident the point that actually matters is the one you are missing yet again.
I like that point. Due process was always there for everyone. Depends on your due.
Discernment may be the better part of discrimination. 😂
Not to worry,X, if they try electroshock, drugs, waterboarding I’ll be right in there fighting it, too.
“14th Amendment’s promise of equal protection”
It’s equal protection under the law.
It always was there for everyone and that restricts the understanding of whom were these protections not given to such an extent the 14th had to be written? I can think of a few groups. Can you Meyer?
We now have replaced naturalization with permanent resident. The 14th is old and dated. We now have the INA. just ask Kav.
It’s pretty bad…
The 14th Amendment is what keeps your rights from being a ‘temporary favor’ from the government.
The INA is just a list of rules that can be deleted tomorrow by a vote in D.C. But the 14th Amendment is a permanent wall. If you call that wall ‘dated’ and tear it down, you aren’t making progress; you are just leaving yourself unprotected the next time a politician wants to change the rules on you.
They baked the cake, but not to celebrate trans union.
The liberal climate of divergence. And it’s progressive. Perhaps they should increase their performance of human rites and bray that their demons will be aborted.