Suit was filed last week in a Missouri federal district court against Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri by the state of Missouri and Christian licensed counselors challenging ordinances passed by those jurisdictions which broadly ban licensed counselors from engaging in counseling directed at changing a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity. The complaint (full text) in Wyatt Bury, LLC v. City of Kansas City, Missouri, (WD MO, filed 2/7/2025), alleges in part:
Kansas City and Jackson County recently passed ordinances that ban purely consensual conversations—pure speech—about gender identity and sexual orientation. These ordinances not only require counselors to parrot these governments’ preferred views on sexual ethics; they also ban different views. That violates the First Amendment.
340. The Counseling Ordinances facially and as-applied restrict speech based on content and viewpoint by prohibiting the Counselors and other licensed professionals who are Missouri citizens from proclaiming only certain content and viewpoints; by applying to speech based solely on its content; by authorizing counseling that supports only one viewpoint of gender identity and sexual orientation....
353. The Public Accommodation Ordinance forces the Counselors to speak messages they object to by requiring them to offer and provide same-sex marital and relationship counseling because the Counselors offer and provide counseling about marriages and relationships between one man and one woman.... and to refer to clients and prospective clients by using those persons’ self-selected pronouns....
376. The City’s Public Accommodation Ordinance substantially burdens the Counselors’ sincerely held religious beliefs by requiring them either to operate their counseling practices in ways that violate their religious beliefs or to close their practices....
Plaintiffs also challenge the ordinances on vagueness grounds.
ADF issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuits.
