The Alliance Defending Freedom is challenging an Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists decision to fine counselor Frank Canepa $89,636 for his refusal to provide personal affirmation of same-sex relationships. The case is now pending before the Oregon Court of Appeals and comes weeks after the Supreme Court invalidated a comparable Colorado law on First Amendment grounds.
Canepa had worked with his client for more than two and a half years without disclosing his personal views on same-sex relationships during at least 44 previous sessions where the topic arose. In one session, the client pressed him for 20 minutes to personally bless her same-sex relationship. Canepa eventually explained that he could not provide the personal affirmation she requested because of his Catholic faith. The state board subsequently determined his response violated Oregon law and the American Counseling Association's Code of Ethics, ordering him to complete six hours of continuing education and pay the costs of his disciplinary hearing, totaling nearly $90,000.
ADF lawyer Jonathan Scruggs stated in response: "The government can't target counselors for their views and can't force people to say things that go against their core convictions. The Supreme Court recently took Colorado to task for censoring counselors and mandating orthodoxy in the counselor's office. Now, Oregon needs to learn the same First Amendment lesson."
The Supreme Court's decision in Chiles v. Salazar determined that constitutional speech protections "extend to licensed professional" counselors "much as they do everyone else." The court's 8-1 ruling, which included Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, found that Colorado's law operated as ideological discrimination rather than a genuine conversion therapy ban. Colorado's statute prohibited counselors from engaging in practices intended to change sexual orientation or gender identity, while simultaneously permitting and encouraging affirmation of gender transition and identity exploration. The court concluded that such a framework places "the state placing its thumb on the ideological scale of the therapeutic relationship" rather than regulating conduct neutrally.
Canepa's legal team argues that Oregon's punishment violates his First Amendment rights, including protections for speech within counseling conversations. The appeal challenges whether the state board can impose financial penalties based on a counselor's expressed viewpoint, particularly when the counselor had maintained professional boundaries throughout an extended therapeutic relationship.
