The owners of a Christian bookstore in Colorado are suing the state over a recent law expanding protections for transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

On July 16, anti-LGBTQ+ legal group Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on behalf of Eric and Sara Smith, the owners of Born Again Used Books in Colorado Springs, challenging the Kelly Loving Act, The Gazette reports.

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Signed by out Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and named for a transgender woman killed in the 2022 Club Q mass shooting, the law made it a violation of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act to intentionally misgender or deadname trans and gender-nonconforming people in places of public accommodation, like schools and workplaces.

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The Smiths contend that the new law violates their First Amendment rights by banning them from expressing their Christian beliefs about sexuality and gender in their store and on their website, and by forcing them to affirm trans and gender-nonconforming people’s identities, according to the lawsuit.

“Although Born Again Used Books happily sells its products to everyone, Colorado now compels the bookstore to speak using pronouns and titles based on a person’s preferred gender expression — thereby requiring the store to prioritize a person’s professed identity over biological reality,” a press release from Alliance Defending Freedom states.

“The Bookstore cannot speak contrary to its beliefs,” the press release continues. “So the store cannot use pronouns, titles, or any other language contrary to a person’s biological sex. To do so would be to affirm the view that a person’s sex can and sometimes should be changed — a view that contradicts the Bookstore’s Christian beliefs.”

The Smiths argue that the law forces them either to abandon their core religious beliefs or face liability, including potential “cease-and-desist orders, expensive investigations, hearings, and hefty fines.”

The lawsuit, which names the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and state Attorney General Phil Weiser as defendants, seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction preventing enforcement of the updated Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act against the Smiths and “third-party speakers similarly situated to Born Again Used Books” for their “constitutionally protected speech, association, assembly, due process, free press, religious exercise, and equal protection rights.”

As MetroWeekly notes, the lawsuit is just the latest challenge to state anti-discrimination laws brought by Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of anti-LGBTQ+ Christian business owners.

Prior to the passage of the Kelly Loving Act, the organization, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group, represented Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips in a case centered around whether Phillips violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act when he refused to make a gender reveal cake for lawyer Autumn Scardina, who is trans, in 2019. The Colorado Supreme dismissed Scardina’s lawsuit last year on procedural grounds without ruling on whether Phillips violated the law.

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