Stephen C. Webster reports on RAW Story:

A Christian group in Michigan has filed a lawsuit alleging that a package of hate crimes laws named after murder victim Matthew Shepard is an affront to their religious freedom.

Far from the intended purpose of severely punishing criminals who commit unspeakable acts against a persecuted minority group, the religious activists claim the laws are a guarded effort to “eradicate” their beliefs.

Filed by the Thomas More Law Center ? which bills itself as the religious answer to the American Civil Liberties Union ? the complaint claims that protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people “is an effort to eradicate religious beliefs opposing the homosexual agenda from the marketplace of ideas by demonizing, vilifying, and criminalizing such beliefs as a matter of federal law and policy.”

The suit…