Tomorrow, an activist legal group will ask SCOTUS to overturn a ban on anti-LGBTQ+ “conversion therapy” in a case that could destroy protections for transgender and queer youth in America. Via The Guardian:

Lawyers from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which has opposed abortion and LGBTQ+ rights in high-profile litigation, are representing a woman challenging a 2019 Colorado law that prohibited conversion practices for youth under age 18. The ban applies to licensed clinicians who seek to change a patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity, tactics medical groups have discredited as harmful and ineffective.

ADF’s petition in the case, Chiles v Salazar, cited several scholars to support its argument that conversion practices should once again be permitted. Two of those experts, however, told the Guardian that ADF had “profoundly” misrepresented their research, which discussed the “psychological damage” of conversion therapy.

The family of a deceased researcher, also quoted by ADF, said they were “deeply disturbed” by the “distortion” of his work.

“This is the most upsetting use of my scholarship that has ever happened in my career,” said Clifford Rosky, a University of Utah professor of constitutional law and civil rights. He has worked to ban conversion therapy, but ADF nonetheless cited his research on sexual orientation and LGBTQ+ rights, co-authored with renowned sexuality researcher Dr Lisa Diamond, to bolster its petition. “It’s upsetting because this is lethally dangerous to LGBTQ+ kids,” he said.

ADF defended its quotations as “accurate” in a statement.

We all know about these assholes. They're the ones who funnel an ongoing stream to SCOTUS of lawsuits meant to impose extremist Christianist rules on all Americans. And they will mostly win this case, based on an extreme Republican SCOTUS majority that almost always hands them a win.