(Louisville, KY) -- The American Center for Law and Justice, an international public interest law firm, today filed suit in U.S. District Court in Louisville challenging the City's ordinance that extends protected status in employment to the categories of "sexual orientation" and "gender identity."

The ACLJ filed suit against the City of Louisville, the Mayor and other officials on behalf of J. Barrett Hyman, M.D., a medical practitioner, who contends that his Biblically-based Christian beliefs prevent him from complying with the City's ordinance. The lawsuit contends that because of his sincerely held religious beliefs, Hyman is compelled to deny employment and discharge from employment any person whom he learns is living a homosexual, bisexual, transgendered, or transsexual lifestyle.

"By forcing employers who object to homosexuality and transgenderism to hire people who practice those lifestyles, the City of Louisville is attempting to legislate its own view of morality at the expense of the fundamental rights of its citizens," said Francis J. Manion, Senior Regional Counsel of the ACLJ-Midwest, who is representing Hyman in the suit.

Manion said: "The City's so-called 'Fairness Ordinance' is not fair. It tramples on an employer's constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. It forces an employer to choose between following the dictates of his conscience and going out of business. The ordinance is not only wrong, it is unconstitutional."

On February 1, 1999, the City of Louisville amended its ordinances to extend anti-discrimination provisions to include the following: 1) "an individual's actual or imputed heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality"; 2) those "having a gender identity as a result of a sex change surgery"; 3) those who manifest "for reasons other than dress, an identity not traditionally associated with one's biological maleness or femaleness."

At the same time, the ordinance subjects violators of the ordinance to fines of up to $50,000.

According to the complaint, Hyman believes that being forced to hire employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity would contradict the traditional family image he seeks to convey to patients and prospective patients of his medical practice.

The lawsuit names as defendants the City of Louisville, Mayor David Armstrong, the Louisville and Jefferson County Human Relations Commission, and the Commission's Executive Director, Phyllis Atiba Brown. The suit contends the ordinance violates the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the Kentucky Constitution. The lawsuit requests that the court declare the ordinance unconstitutional and unlawful and seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting the defendants from enforcing the ordinance.

Manion said: "The City of Louisville has failed to recognize that in this country there is a fundamental constitutionally-protected right to freely practice one's religion. The bottom line is that governments cannot be permitted to penalize the practice of Christianity by fining employers who simply want to run their businesses in accordance with their beliefs."