The owners of a Minnesota-based media
company are suing for the right to refuse to serve gay couples.
Carl and Angel Larsen, the founders and
owners of Telescope Media Group, filed their lawsuit on Tuesday.
The Larsens claim in their lawsuit that
a Minnesota law which prohibits their video production business from
discriminating against gay couples violates their religious beliefs
about marriage.
Using their “media production and
filmmaking talents to produce a video promoting or communicating the
idea that marriage can exist between anyone but one man and one
woman” would violate their “religious beliefs about marriage,”
the Larsens said in their lawsuit, according to ABC
affiliate KSTP.
“Minnesota law requires business
owners, like the Larsens, who produce videos telling the story of
marriages between one man and one woman, to also produce videos
celebrating marriages between two men or two women, and to contract
in a way to celebrate these marriages,” the lawsuit states.
The Larsens are being represented by
the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian conservative law
group.
The lawsuit asks a federal judge to
declare that the laws violate the U.S. Constitution's freedom of
speech clause, free exercise of religion clause, due process clause
and equal protection clause.
Minnesota lawmakers in 2013 approved a
law extending marriage rights to gay couples after voters rejected a
proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution which would define
marriage as a heterosexual union.