TOPEKA – (July 23, 2026) – Kansas Attorney General Kris W. Kobach today sent letters to the mayors of Lawrence, Roeland Park, and Prairie Village, calling on each city to immediately repeal its local ordinance banning so-called “conversion therapy,” including counseling that involves only speech.

The letters cite the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, which struck down a nearly identical Colorado law as a violation of the First Amendment. The Court held that such bans improperly censor therapists’ speech based on viewpoint and that therapist speech is constitutionally protected.

“The First Amendment applies to everyone – therapists, patients and everyone else. A city violates the Constitution when it attempts to forbid a therapist from providing the counseling that the therapist believes is in the best interest of the patient,” Kobach said. “The government may not declare that some words and ideas are forbidden. And now the Supreme Court of the United States has squarely ruled on the subject.”

In the letter to Lawrence Mayor Brad Finkeldei, Attorney General Kobach wrote: “Lawrence’s ordinance seeks to control speech in a nearly identical way. … In other words, only one viewpoint is allowed to be expressed. Thus, the ordinance engages in viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.”

The letters to Roeland Park and Prairie Village contain substantially similar analysis, noting that each city’s ordinance defines “conversion therapy” to include any counseling that fails to affirm a patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity. But it expressly permits counseling that supports identity exploration or gender transition—thereby allowing only one viewpoint to be expressed.

Attorney General Kobach requested that each city inform his office within 60 days whether the ordinance has been repealed. The letters were also copied to the respective city council members.

Read the letters here.