Ninth Circuit

Lawyers for the libertarian Institute for Justice wrote in a New York Times op/ed that the Ninth Circuit was wrong to rule against First Amendment challenges to a "California law that prohibits licensed medical providers from using talk therapy to try to change a minor’s sexual orientation." The Ninth Circuit found that such therapy is “conduct,” not “speech,” according to the piece. The risk of allowing such a ruling to stand is that labeling expression as conduct, not speech, allows the goverment to regulate expression in any which way, Institute for Justice argues.

California has beautiful weather and environs, which has led the growth of destination facilities for people seeking treatment for alcohol and other drug addictions. But that also has led to California localities enacting zoning rules to clamp down on such facilities. Last week, the Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment in favor of  Newport Beach over that locality's zoning rules designed to inhibit those facilities, the OC Weekly reported. "There is direct or circumstantial evidence that [city officials] acted with a discriminatory purpose and has caused harm to member of a protected class [and] such evidence is sufficient to permit the protected individuals to proceed to trial,"' the OC Weekly reported from the opinion summary.

Treatment Magazine commented: "Last week's ruling should give pause to nearby jurisdictions from Malibu down the coast to neighboring Costa Mesa, many of which have been considering ways to restrict what admittedly has been rampant growth of Six-Bed Model treatment centers, as well as sober living operations, over the last 20 years up and down the California coastline. That growth has made Southern California a close second in size to South Florida as the nation's largest 'destination' addiction treatment services marketplace with clientele descending from all corners." The full piece is here: http://www.treatmentmagazine.com/newswires/432-california-appeals-court-...

(Thanks to Laura Elliott-Engel, my super fabulous mother and president of the board of Friends of Recovery New York to alerting me to the opinion.)