supreme court

Supreme Court to Decide if Washington State Can ‘Transition’ Runaway Children

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up a challenge to Washington state laws that allow the state to help runaway children receive abortions and “transgender” medical interventions – puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries – without parental consent or knowledge.

The Court announced on June 29, 2026, that it was granting certiorari in the case International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. (IPEC) v. Ferguson, which presents the question:

Whether parents have standing to challenge a law or policy that deliberately displaces their decision-making role as to “gender transitions” of their children, and in so doing creates present and likely future impediments to their ability to parent their children as they deem best for them.

The case began in April 2023 when Governor Bob Ferguson signed SB 5999, “Supporting youth and young adults seeking protected health care services,” into law, as the Family Policy Institute of Washington (FPIW) reported.

The Focus on the Family ally explained:

SB 5599, as signed by the Governor, allows shelters to assist children in obtaining abortions, puberty blockers, gender “reassignment” surgeries, or any other health services prescribed by a doctor to treat “dysphoria,” without contacting police, CPS, or the child’s parents. 
The bill report states that a shelter can be classified as “any person, unlicensed youth shelter, or runaway and homeless youth program.” This means that a child could seek shelter at any stranger’s house and that person would not need to alert police that they were harboring a runaway child. This opens the door for countless threats to the safety of minors across the state. (Their emphasis.)

The bill defined “protective health care services” as “gender-affirming treatment and reproductive healthcare services that are lawful in the state of Washington.”

“Gender affirming treatment” is a euphemism for body-damaging, experimental, irreversible medical interventions like puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries that attempt to make a person look like the opposite sex.

“Reproductive health care services” includes abortions and the removal of healthy organs, like “genitals, gonads, the uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and breasts.”

In August 2023, America First Legal filed a lawsuit challenging the legislation against Governor Jay Inslee, Attorney General Robert Ferguson, and Ross Hunter, Secretary of the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Plaintiffs in the case a group of eight parents and two organizations, IPEC and Advocates Protecting Children.

America First Legal was joined by Schaerr Jaffe LLP, and Joel Ard, who brought the pre-enforcement challenge, arguing the statute deprived some parents “of their fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution to direct the care and upbringing of their children, as well as their rights to the free exercise of religion, due process, free speech, and equal protection.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, agreeing with a lower court, held that the parents and organizations did not have standing, meaning they did not have a direct stake in the outcome and had not yet been injured – despite the fact that the parents had children who rejected their sex, including one child who had previously run away from home.

The 9th Circuit ruled, in July 2025, that the plaintiffs had not shown they had “suffered or will imminently suffer an injury in fact.”

Remember, this is a law which allows any person or shelter in Washington to hide children, along with critical mental and psychological health information – from their parents. But the 9th Circuit stated the parents could not challenge this unconstitutional law which deprived them of their right to raise children according to their deeply held beliefs.

The case has ramifications beyond Washington, as California, Minnesota, New Mexico and Illinois have similar laws or executive orders in place.

International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. (IPEC) v. Ferguson  could also affect cases in Arizona, California, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, Texas and other states which have removed children from parents’ custody because they would not allow damaging transgender medical interventions.

International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. (IPEC) v. Ferguson will be heard in late 2026 or early 2027. The Daily Citizen will keep you informed about this important parental rights case.

Related articles and resources:

Activist Erin Friday on Protecting Kids and Fighting Gender Ideology

Colorado Bill Would Force Parents to Accept Child’s New ‘Gender Identity’

Erin Friday on Family Courts, ‘Transgender’ Sanctuary States and Fighting to Protect Parental Rights

HHS Tells States Not to Remove Children From Parents Who Affirm Biological Reality

U.S. Supreme Court Axes Protections for Deep State

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Donald J. Trump can fire Democrat members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), overruling Humphrey’s Executor, a 90-year-old Court precedent that limited presidents’ ability to remove officers of so-called “independent agencies.”

The Court’s Ruling

“Nearly 250 years ago, the Framers decided to vest ‘[t]he executive Power’ in one person – ‘a President of the United States of America,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the Court’s majority.

“Since its creation in 1914, the FTC has accumulated vast rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicatory powers under more than 80 statutes,” Roberts continued.

“Its powers, however, do not belong to the President or his appointees alone; they instead belong to five Commissioners, each of whom serves for seven years and may be removed by the President only ‘for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,’” Roberts explained, citing the Federal Trade Commission Act which insulated commissioners from democratic accountability.

“We hold that such protections from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.”

Chief Justice Roberts was joined in the majority by Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. Justice Thomas joined most of the Court’s opinion, while Justice Sotomayor authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson.

Case Background

The present case stems from President Trump’s decision in early 2025 to fire two Democrat FTC Commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, telling them their “continued service on the FTC [was] inconsistent with [his] Administration’s priorities.”

However, President Trump did not assert that they were inefficient, negligent or malfeasant in office, which, under the FTC Act, would have allowed him to remove the commissioners “for-cause.”

Rather, the president removed them “pursuant to [his] authority under Article II of the Constitution” which states: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

Presidential Power

The Constitution’s framers “rejected a committee-style Executive Branch in favor of a unitary and accountable President,” the chief justice stated. The president’s power included his ability to remove executive officers at will.

In 1926, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed this precedent after President Wilson fired Portland’s postmaster, Frank Myers, who then sued the president for backpay. In Myers v. United States, the Court rejected Myers’ suit and “reaffirmed the President’s power to fire his subordinates at will.”

Nine years later, the Court issued Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which “arose out of President Roosevelt’s decision to fire one of President Hoover’s appointees to the Federal Trade Commission, William Humphrey,” two years into his seven-year term.

After Humphrey died, the executor of his estate sued for backpay. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently ruled unanimously in favor of Humphrey, carving out an exception to Myers, deciding that some executive officers’ jobs – including those of FTC commissioners – were “neither political nor executive,” and were therefore immune from being fired by the president except “for cause.”

In the present case (Trump v. Slaughter), the Court expressly overruled Humphrey’s Executor and greenlighted President Trump’s decision to fire Rebecca Slaughter.

Why It Matters

As Chief Justice Roberts concluded, “Our Constitution creates three branches, but only one President. … Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.”

Down through history, Americans have treasured their ability to shape, change and correct their government at the ballot box in regularly held elections. This practice makes our government one that is “of the people, by the people, [and] for the people.”

However, in recent decades, particularly in the 20th century, Congress repeatedly delegated its legislative powers to “independent agencies” in the executive branch which were insulated from the public, and above accountability. These agencies became known as the “fourth branch” of government or the “Administrative State.”

In Slaughter, the Court restores accountability to these agencies and ensures Americans happy or unhappy with executive branch agencies’ decisions know where to direct their thanks or ire: the democratically elected president of the United States.

As Dr. John Eastman writes in The Federalist, “The executive power … was vested in a single president precisely so the American people would know whom to praise or blame for the execution of federal law.”

“Accountability requires authority,” he adds. “A president who cannot remove those exercising executive power cannot truly be held responsible for how that power is exercised.”

The Court’s Slaughter decision serves as a reminder to all Americans of their responsibility to keep the government honest and accountable. If they’re unhappy with the state of things – now or in the future – it’s up to them to register to vote, get engaged and make their voices heard.

The case is Trump v. Slaughter.

Related articles and resources:

BREAKING – Supreme Court Sides with FDA and President Trump Over Abortion Pill Regulations

House Passes Bill Limiting Federal Judges’ Authority to Block Presidential Policies

Supreme Court Reinstates Trump Admin Requirement That Passports Display Biological Sex

Photo from Getty Images.

Washington Counselor Asks Court to Protect Free Speech

Brian Tingley, a Christian counselor in Washington state, is seeking the restoration of his constitutional rights after the recent U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision protecting counselors’ speech, Chiles v. Salazar.

Tingley is a licensed marriage and family therapist with over 20 years of experience who counsels adult and minor clients. He engages only in talk therapy: listening to clients, asking questions and helping them pursue behavioral changes according to their desires and goals.

As a Christian, Tingley affirms the Bible’s teachings on relationships, sexuality and marriage.

However, Washington state – prohibiting so-called “conversion therapy” – makes it illegal for Tingley to help minor clients leave unwanted homosexuality or embrace their biological sex. Washington requires him – and all counselors – to speak only in a state-approved way, pushing clients towards homosexuality or “transgenderism.”

This kind of speech code, however, is a clear violation of the First Amendment’s free speech clause.

On March 31, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a momentous decision striking down Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” as an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. Colorado’s law is essentially identical to Washington’s.

“While the First Amendment protects many and varied forms of expression, the spoken word is perhaps the quintessential form of protected speech,” Justice Gorsuch wrote for the Court’s majority in Chiles v. Salazar. “And that is exactly the kind of expression in which Ms. Chiles seeks to engage.” So too with Brian Tingley.

Justice Gorsuch added, “The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”

As a result of the Court’s decision in Chiles, Tingley – who had previously challenged Washington’s law in court but lost – is asking a lower court to reconsider his case. He is being represented by attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

“Washington’s law bans voluntary conversations based on the state’s ideological crusade to impose gender ideology and to reject common sense,” said ADF Senior Counsel Hal Frampton, director of the Center for Conscience Initiatives. “This is censorship pure and simple, and it violates the First Amendment — as affirmed recently in an 8-1 Supreme Court decision.”

Frampton added,

We are urging the district court to finally allow justice to prevail for Brian, protect his “inalienable right to think and speak freely,” and free him to provide excellent counseling to families and young people who seek his counseling.

Tingley isn’t the only counselor looking for his First Amendment rights to be restored in the wake of Chiles.

In May, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Terri Koschnick and Joy Buchman, licensed counselors who are challenging the Badger State’s law prohibiting counselors from helping minor clients with unwanted same-sex attraction and sexual identity confusion.

Hopefully, counselors nationwide will soon – thanks to Chiles – be free to help all individuals seeking to live according to a biblical sexual ethic. The Daily Citizen will keep you updated on important developments.

The case is Tingley v. Brown.

If you or someone you know is struggling with homosexuality or transgenderism, Focus on the Family offers a one-time complimentary consultation with our ministry’s professionally trained counseling staff. The consultation is free due to generous donor support.

To reach Focus on the Family’s counseling service by phone, call 1-800-A-Family (232-6459) weekdays 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Mountain Time). Please be prepared to leave your contact information for a counselor or chaplain to return a call to you as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can fill out our Counseling Consultation Request Form.

We also offer local referrals for licensed counselors who align with the mission and values of Focus on the Family.

Related articles and resources:

The Supreme Court’s ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ruling: Four Truths You Should Know

Supreme Court Smacks Down Colorado’s ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ban in 8-1 Decision

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Counseling Censorship Case

Judge Dismisses Therapist’s Lawsuit Over Ban on Counseling for Same-Sex Attraction, Gender Identity

Christian Counselor Sues for Right to Talk to Minors About Same-Sex Attraction, Gender Identity Issues

Is Therapy to Leave Homosexuality Damaging? New Review Says, ‘No Proof of Harm’

Therapy Bans Threaten Religious Freedom, Free Speech and Parental Rights

Why We Support Therapy for Unwanted Homosexuality

Photo from Alliance Defending Freedom.

Clarence Thomas Becomes Nation’s Second Longest-Serving Supreme Court Justice

Congratulations, Justice Clarence Thomas!

On Wednesday, May 6, Thomas officially became the second longest-serving justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, serving for 34 years and 195 days – that’s 12,605 days.

Justice Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court by former President George H.W. Bush, and was confirmed as an associate justice on October 15, 1991, in a 52-48 vote following a brutal confirmation hearing process.

The 77-year-old Catholic justice beat out Justice Stephen Johnson Field, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by former President Abraham Lincoln, and served from 1863 until 1897.

Thomas, the second African American to serve on the Court, has been one of the Court’s most ardent defenders of originalism – interpreting the Constitution based on what it meant at the time it was written – rather than reinterpreting the text as judges might like it to mean today.

Thomas has been in the majority in numerous crucial decisions, including in holding the Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion (in Dobbs); in determining race-based college admissions violate the Constitution (in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard); and in determining the Constitution permits states to protect kids from harmful “transgender” medical interventions (U.S. v. Skrmetti).

Justice Thomas has lived a remarkable life. He grew up in abject poverty in the segregated South, and was raised, along with his brother, by his grandparents.

Thomas studied for the Catholic priesthood for a time, before deciding to leave seminary, and turned into a radical racial revolutionary during his college years after witnessing the segregated South. He was inspired by black activists like Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown and Angela Davis, among others.

After a particularly violent student demonstration, Thomas prayed and asked God to deliver him from his inner tumult, which became a crucial turning point for him.

Thomas then attended Yale Law School and worked for Missouri Attorney General John Danforth. After Danforth’s election to the U.S. Senate, Thomas followed him to Washington, D.C. and then worked in the Reagan administration in the Department of Education. He was then nominated by former President Ronald Reagan to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where he served from 1982 until 1990.

Thomas then served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the most influential appellate court in the country, before being nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall.

If you have never read his autobiography, My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir, it is as fascinating as it is inspiring.

In a recent interview, Justice Neil Gorsuch recently sang Thomas’ praises on Fox News and gave a plug for the book.

“I adore that man. He is a great student and scholar of the Constitution. … He also has maybe the best laugh of anyone I know – a great booming laugh that echoes through the Court all the time,” Gorsuch said.

“People in the Court, he knows everybody’s name,” Gorsuch continued. “He is a man of great and deep faith. And he has lived the American story, the American dream. And if anybody wants to know more about Clarence Thomas, I just cannot recommend his book, My Grandfather’s Son, enough.”

Additionally, in 2020, an autobiographical film, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, was released detailing Thomas’ life, career and judicial philosophy.

You can watch a trailer for the film below:

In the film, Thomas talks about growing up with a grandfather who was extremely strict and very hard working.

When Thomas was seven years old, he recounts, “[My grandfather] says to us, ‘You are going to go to school every day. If you are sick, you’re still going. If you die, I will take your body for three days to make sure you are not faking.’ And he meant it.”

The clip has been making the rounds on X:

Justice Thomas clearly learned his lesson about the importance of hard work and dedication, which he brings to his well-reasoned, clear and scholarly opinions, year after year.

If Justice Thomas serves for two more years, he will beat out William O. Douglas to become our nation’s longest-serving Supreme Court justice.

Keep calm and carry on, Justice Thomas! We are deeply indebted to you and grateful for your service!

Related articles and resources:

Justice Thomas Warns Progressivism Opposes America’s Founding Principles

Clarence Thomas Becomes Nation’s Fifth Longest-Serving Supreme Court Justice

Celebrating Clarence Thomas’ Remarkable 32 Years on the U.S. Supreme Court

On This Independence Day, Clarence Thomas Explains What’s Great About America

Justice Clarence Thomas Spotted Laying Wreaths at Arlington Cemetery to Honor our Military

Celebrating Giants Like Justice Clarence Thomas During Black History Month

Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words

Photo from Getty Images.

The Supreme Court’s ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ruling: Four Truths You Should Know

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Colorado’s law banning so-called “conversion therapy” is likely unconstitutional, violating the First Amendment’s free speech clause.

In the 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court held the state’s “Prohibit Conversion Therapy for A Minor” law (HB19-1129), enacted in 2019, engages in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination since it prohibited therapists from voicing certain perspectives that Colorado disfavors.

Because of its speech restrictions, the law must satisfy strict scrutiny – the highest standard of judicial review, the Supreme Court said. The lower courts had erroneously applied rational-basis review – a much lower standard – in upholding the law.

The law prohibited licensed counselors from helping minor clients struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction or sexual identity confusion. The Orwellian speech code mandated counselors speak in a specific, state-mandated way when counseling minor clients.

Counselors could only help clients embrace homosexuality or a “transgender” identity. The law prohibited counselors from helping clients, through simple talk therapy, turn away from homosexual thoughts, behaviors and identities, or resolve feelings of gender dysphoria and embrace their biological sex.

“Under our precedents, viewpoint restrictions like that are not subject to mere rational-basis review or intermediate scrutiny,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the Court’s majority. “Rather, they represent ‘an egregious form of content discrimination’ where First Amendment concerns are at their most ‘blatant.’”

The case stems from Christian Colorado counselor Kaley Chiles’ lawsuit seeking to prevent enforcement of HB19-1129 and protect her First Amendment right to speak freely in counseling conversations with minors.

“While the First Amendment protects many and varied forms of expression, the spoken word is perhaps the quintessential form of protected speech,” Gorsuch added, “And that is exactly the kind of expression in which Ms. Chiles seeks to engage.”

Justice Gorsuch continued,

The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.

The Court’s decision is a clear win for all Americans’ free speech rights and for minors who want to find help and hope of healing from homosexuality and transgenderism.

However, you’d never know that from reading the mainstream media’s biased coverage of the Court’s ruling.

The Associated Press claimed the decision is “the latest in a line of recent cases in which the justices have [taken] a skeptical view of LGBTQ+ rights,” opining that “conversion therapy” is a “discredited practice.”

The New York Times said Colorado’s law prohibits counselors from “trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of L.G.B.T.Q. minors.”

NBC News called the decision “a blow to LGBTQ rights” in the opening sentence of its article on the ruling. The outlet called “conversion therapy” “widely discredited” and “ineffective,” deeming it “harmful, increasing a risk of suicide among people subjected to it.”

USA Today said “conversion therapy” is “ineffective and harmful.”

For all the smoke and mirrors proffered by other outlets, here are four truthful things you should know about the Court’s ruling.

“Conversion Therapy” Doesn’t Exist

There is no “harmful” or “discredited” practice known as “conversion therapy.” As the Daily Citizen has previously noted, “No counselor or therapist ever put out a sign saying, ‘I offer conversion therapy’ or ‘I’ll convert you from gay to straight!’ There is no such clinical practice.”

“The term was invented by activists who oppose the truth that some people with same-sex attractions or gender identity confusion who don’t want to embrace those thoughts, feelings, identities or behaviors.”

The Truth: Some individuals who experience unwanted same-sex attraction or sexual identity confusion seek counselors’ help to reach their own goals and find freedom from homosexuality and transgenderism; many individuals do find lasting freedom from these struggles.

Talk Therapy is Not Harmful

As the Court recounted in its opinion, Chiles (and other Christian counselors) does not “prescribe any medicines, perform any physical treatments, or engage in any coercive or aversive practices. All Ms. Chiles offers is talk therapy.”

A 2022 study conducted by Rev. D. Paul Sullins, Ph.D., a research professor of sociology with the Catholic University of America, found that “sexual orientation change efforts” are not associated with causing behavioral harms – unlike what the media claims.

The Truth: Talk therapy can be helpful for individuals who want to explore their past experiences, feelings, relationships, identities and behaviors and who want to live out a biblical sexual ethic.

The Court Upheld All Americans’ Free Speech Rights

The media inexplicably and incorrectly portrayed the ruling as a “blow to LGBT rights.” But the Court did not remove any “LGBT right.” Nor did it mandate any homosexual- or transgender-identified individuals receive talk therapy.

The Court merely said minor clients who want to leave homosexuality or transgenderism can receive a counselor’s help in doing so.

The Truth: The Court upheld Americans’ right to speak freely and receive counseling as they wish.

LGBT Activists Promote Conversion Therapy

LGBT activists who oppose counselors helping clients leave transgenderism, who want to trap individuals into a lifetime of confusion over their sexual identity, are the real advocates of “conversion therapy.”

These radical activists would prefer minors receive harmful, damaging and irreversible puberty blocking drugs, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries, rather than explore their feelings and identities with a licensed counselor.

This is a misguided attempt to “convert” children into looking and acting like the opposite sex, rather than helping them embrace biological reality. Most children with sexual identity confusion will desist, but transgender ideology tries to convince them – and their families – that they need to somehow “become” the opposite sex.

As commentator Allie Beth Stuckey wrote, “True, damaging ‘conversion therapy’ is the kind that convinces kids that they’re the opposite gender.”

The Truth: LGBT activists are the real proponents of harmful “conversion therapy” for children with sexual identity confusion.

Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kaley Chiles’ favor, upholding her free speech rights and the right of all licensed counselors to help minors receive the therapy they seek.

The case now goes back down to the lower court, where Colorado’s law will likely fail to meet a strict scrutiny analysis and be found unconstitutional.

The case is Chiles v. Salazar.

Related articles and resources:

Supreme Court Smacks Down Colorado’s ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ban in 8-1 Decision

Counseling for Sexual Identity Concerns: A Measured, Careful, and Compassionate approach.

What Is ‘Conversion Therapy’?

Four Things You Should Know About Michigan’s Ban on Therapy for Unwanted Homosexuality or Transgenderism

Elizabeth Woning Left Lesbianism for a Relationship with Christ – She Wants Others to Have that Same Freedom

New Study: Even Failed Efforts to Leave Homosexuality Are Not Harmful

New Study Shows Therapy to Leave Homosexuality Can Be Effective and Helpful

Photo from Getty Images.