A federal judge cleared the way on Tuesday for California's new law banning gay "conversion therapies" for minors, one day after another federal judge, in a separate decision, called the ban an unconstitutional infringement on speech.
Because Monday's ruling by Judge William B. Shubb, of Federal District Court in Sacramento, was applicable only to three plaintiffs in the suit before him — two practicing therapists and a former patient — it appeared the state's ban would take effect on Jan. 1 as planned.
But the contradictory rulings, and the prospect of appeals from both sides of the issue, suggested that the law, the first of its kind, could be embroiled in the courts in the months ahead.
The ban had been hailed by gay rights advocates and mainstream mental health groups that call therapies that try to alter the sexual orientation of youths potentially damaging.
Judge Shubb's ruling sharply challenged the law, and left little doubt that in his court, as he put it, "the plaintiffs are likely to succeed" with their argument that the law violates free speech.
But on Tuesday, Judge Kimberly J. Mueller, in another federal court in Sacramento, held that the plaintiffs in her case — two former patients and their parents, who also challenged the law — were unlikely to prevail and refused to prevent the law from taking effect. While the law's supporters appeared to have the upper hand, advocates on both sides said they planned to keep fighting in court.
California's attorney general, Kamala D. Harris, said, "My office will continue to protect California minors by vigorously defending this law."
Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, the conservative legal Christian group that challenged the law before Judge Shubb, said his group was "ready to fight this battle all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary."
After Tuesday's ruling, Liberty Counsel, a conservative evangelical group representing several therapists, former patients of conversion therapy and their parents, quickly appealed Judge Mueller's decision.
The California ban on conversion therapies drew the state into murky legal waters, said Eugene Volokh, a professor and constitutional expert at the U.C.L.A. law school. "There's a good deal of uncertainty about how to apply the First Amendment to professional speech to clients and even more uncertainty in the case of minors," he said. "It's not clear how this is ultimately going to play out."
Professor Volokh predicted that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals would take action in the months ahead to resolve the conflicting judicial rulings.
Since the 1970s, mainstream mental health societies have accepted homosexuality as a natural and ingrained trait for some. But renegade therapists have promoted the theory that homosexuality is a disorder resulting from family dynamics and childhood trauma that can be overcome.
The California attorney general said that the law did not inhibit free speech, but rather regulated the conduct of licensed professionals, and that the government had an established interest in barring practices deemed ineffective or potentially harmful.
But because the therapy mainly involves speech, Judge Shubb said, the ban could bar "a mental health provider from expressing his or her viewpoints about homosexuality" during treatment. He also questioned the scientific proof behind a central justification for the law: that the therapy causes serious harm to minors. In anecdotal accounts, many former patients describe extreme distress and depression after trying conversion therapy.
But evidence of harm may be insufficiently established, the judge said, "based on questionable and scientifically incomplete studies that may not have included minors."
Judge Mueller took a markedly different view, saying that the plaintiffs before her were overstating the constraints on the ability of therapists to express opinions and noting the state's legitimate role in regulating medical services. She said the legislature had made a reasonable judgment in accepting evidence that conversion therapies could be harmful for minors.
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