Dierks v. City of Lincoln

Thomas Dierks, a Catholic counselor who has practiced in Nebraska for more than 27 years, and a second Christian counselor, named in the lawsuit as "John Doe," help young people work through life's hardest questions using talk therapy alone, and always toward goals their clients set for themselves. Under a 2021 Lincoln ordinance, a counselor may help a minor toward "gender transition," but a counselor who helps a child become comfortable with his or her biological sex, or work through unwanted same-sex attraction in keeping with his or her faith, faces up to six months in jail, fines, and possible loss of his license. The ordinance's threat has made these counselors' conversations with clients more guarded, and it denies children the help of trusted adults when they reach out.

In March 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Chiles v. Salazar that Colorado's nearly identical counseling ban discriminated based on viewpoint as applied to talk therapy. Thomas More Society put Lincoln on notice two weeks later and requested repeal. In July, attorneys sent the City an Eighth Circuit ruling applying Chiles to a similar Kansas City ordinance and gave Lincoln a final chance to avoid litigation. When Lincoln left its ban in place, Thomas More Society filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska on behalf of Dierks and Doe. The suit argues that the ordinance violates the counselors' First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion and is unconstitutionally vague under the Fourteenth Amendment. It asks the court to declare the ordinance unconstitutional and block its enforcement.