The evangelical Christians who own Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday challenging the federal mandate that they provide their employees no-cost access to contraception that conflicts with their religious beliefs.

The lawsuit claims the federal Health and Human Services mandate, part of the Affordable Care Act adopted in 2010, violates the business owners' freedoms of religion and speech. Hobby Lobby founder and CEO David Green said the law places his family and company in an untenable position.

“Our family is now being forced to choose to between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families,” Green said Wednesday during a conference call. “We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”

The Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby and Mardel retail stores, have long been public about their religious beliefs, reflected in the Sunday closings of their stores, the purchase of full-page Christian-themed newspaper ads on Easter and Christmas, the use of full-time chaplains to minister to employees and using profits to fund ministries and missions around the world.