As reported by CBN News, Carl and Angel Larson, owners of Telescope Media Group, appeared before the federal 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minn., last week to challenge a state law they say unconstitutionally forces them to produce content that contradicts their core religious beliefs.
The couple, which is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom legal group, said they have already been threatened by state officials with large fines and up to three months in jail if they refuse to comply.
As CBN News notes further:
The Larsens want to enter the wedding industry. However, the state’s Human Rights Act stipulates that if the couple creates films celebrating their Christian beliefs about marriage – that marriage is between one man and one woman – they must also create films about marriage that violate their beliefs, including films promoting same-sex marriages.
“The government shouldn’t threaten filmmakers with fines and jail time to force them to create films that violate their beliefs,” ADF Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco said in a press release from the legal organization. “Carl and Angel are storytellers – they script, stage, conduct interviews, capture footage, select music, edit and more – all to tell compelling stories through film that promote their religious beliefs.”
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of religious rights. In the case, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the high court ruled that the Colorado commission violated a Christian baker’s First Amendment’s “free exercise clause” when it sanctioned him for refusing to create a cake for a gay couple’s wedding (the fake news New York Times called this a “narrow decision”).
“The neutral and respectful consideration to which (baker-shop owner Jack) Phillips was entitled was compromised here,” now-retired Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote. “The Civil Rights Commission’s treatment of his case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection.” (Related: Despite SCOTUS ‘gay wedding cake’ ruling, Colorado Leftists are going after Christian baker Jack Phillips AGAIN.)
This is why the GOP must keep control of the Senate
The Times claimed that the decision was “narrow” because it appeared to apply specifically to Phillips’ case. The paper noted that Kennedy authored a ruling in 2015 that recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
But in regards to the Larsen’s case, they’re not trying to argue against the right to same-sex marriage. They, like Phillips, are trying to defend their religious expression rights under the First Amendment. And they simply do not believe that two men or two women should be “married” because their faith does not ascribe to it.
The Supreme Court’s Masterpiece decision found “that the government must respect the belief – held by countless Americans from all walks of life – that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Tedesco said. “The 8th Circuit should reinstate the Larsen’s lawsuit and order the state to stop forcing the Larsens to speak messages about marriage that violate their beliefs.”
As a decision is pending, what’s troublesome is that American citizens are increasingly being forced to defend their constitutional rights by tyrannical Left-wing state governments that are passing laws designed to strip them of those rights under the guise of conveying rights on others.
The First Amendment, in particular, has been abused by the Left, and almost always in an attempt to attack Christianity – to force believers into violating the tenets of their faith.
This is why it is vitally important that Republicans keep their majority in the Senate and why Democrats are currently trying to steal GOP Senate victories: POTUS Donald Trump’s record of appointing constitutionalists, not activists, to the federal bench and the Supreme Court, are going a long way towards reinstating and defending our founding principles.
For everyone.
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