A Minnesota federal judge heard arguments Friday in a lawsuit brought by the owners of a film company who want to tell stories of marriage from an exclusively Biblical perspective. The state’s non-discrimination law requires wedding industry businesses to serve all prospective clients, including same-sex couples, or face stiff fines and even imprisonment.

That law and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights’ active pursuit of violators has kept Carl and Angel Larsen, founders and owners of Telescope Media Group, from expanding their film-making production business to include weddings. Instead of venturing into the wedding industry and awaiting the inevitable business-crushing lawsuit filed by a same-sex couple and their ACLU attorneys, the Larsens went on the offense. They filed Telescope Media Group v. Lindsey seeking relief from the law, which they claim violates their First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion.

Their attorney, Jeremy Tedesco of Alliance Defending Freedom, said Chief Judge John R. Tunheim’s questions to the state’s attorneys clearly indicated he understood the First Amendment implications of the case. The state law gives no exceptions for conscience protections and requires wedding industry businesses to service same-sex marriages or face criminal penalties, punitive damages up to $25,000, triple compensatory damages, and up to 90 days in jail.

Religious liberty attorneys have argued in related cases that compelled speech is unconstitutional whether the speech is spoken, written, or expressed through creative design. But that argument has fallen on deaf ears, much to Tedesco’s frustration.

Minnesota’s state attorneys defended the law by turning a blind eye to the expressive aspect of the Larsens’ films, Tedesco said, and insisted the law can compel citizens to engage in speech even if it violates their consciences. Tedesco warned that’s a dangerous argument because a reversal in political power could change the people whose speech is compelled. Neither scenario is indicative of a free society he said.

Carl Larsen told me he and Angel have received support from the creative community and they are prepared for the long legal haul.

“My identity is in Jesus Christ,” he said. “[I will] stay near to Him and trust Him and work for the good of my community.”

The Larsens told me they have not calculated the unearned revenue from their self-banishment from the wedding industry but said their case is about free speech and their hope is that “everyone can live freely according to their convictions.”

Still waiting on the high court

Courts repeatedly have repudiated state-compelled speech, but some municipal and state governments don’t feel obligated to comply with legal precedent.

The California Legislature, in defiance of two federal court decisions overturning similar statutes, ordered pro-life pregnancy centers in 2010 to give clients information about where they could obtain state-funded contraceptives and abortions. Three pro-life organizations filed separate suits challenging the law. After losing in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their appeals.

Jack Phillips, owner of a Colorado bakery sued for not providing a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, has waited almost a year to find out if the high court will take his case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The unusually protracted delay has fueled speculation the court is biding its time while a minority of justices drafts a dissent to a hearing denial. If the majority denies the case, it will mark the second time the high court has refused to hear the plea of a business owner seeking relief from so-called non-discrimination laws that force them to support same-sex marriage in violation of their beliefs. —B.P.

Lesson for the day

A group of San Diego Unified School District parents filed a federal lawsuit last week against the district, alleging its new “anti-bullying” curriculum created in cooperation with The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), violates the Establishment Clause of the First and 14th amendments. The suit calls for the removal of the material that sets up “a subtle, discriminatory scheme that establishes Muslim students as the privileged religious group within the school community,” according to the complaint.

The school district reported seven cases of religious-based bullying and harassment in the second half of 2016. Although it lacked evidence to support the existence of systemic anti-Muslim bullying, the school board voted unanimously in July to implement a policy addressing “Islamophobia” and discrimination in the 129,258-student district. Plaintiffs in Citizens for Quality Education v, San Diego Unified School District allege the board’s list of “Immediate Action Steps” will accommodate Muslim students by marginalizing students of other faiths and introduce “biased and inaccurate” curriculum. —B.P.

This school hasn’t got a prayer

Toni Richardson, who works for the Augusta School Department in Augusta, Maine, recently told a co-worker in a private conversation over an apparent conflict that she would pray for him. That crossed a line only school administrators could see. In a “coaching memorandum,” Richardson’s superiors said her turn of a phrase constituted “public school-sponsored religious expression” that must end. They claimed it violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. First Liberty Institute filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Richardson’s behalf, charging the district with religious discrimination and retaliation. —B.P.