WASHINGTON – Religious freedom is a huge issue in America's presidential election, with Christian business owners finding themselves targeted simply for following their beliefs.

None of these men and women thought expressing their beliefs through their business would make them criminals in the eyes of the law. Now they're spreading the word of how an aggressive gay rights agenda can threaten livelihoods, savings and even freedom.



Kentucky has taken t-shirt printer Blaine Adamson to court for his refusal to print shirts for a pro-gay and lesbian festival. He thinks all Americans need to be concerned.



"I don't believe it's just Christians, but non-Christians because our civil liberties travel together," Adamson warned.

"And if the government forces me to speak a message, that's a scary thing because as administrations change, as policies change that same force could apply to someone who thinks totally different than me," he said.



Spokane florist Barronelle Stutzman faces losing everything. Washington state is trying to take all her assets because she refused to do the flower arrangements for a long-time customer and friend's same-sex wedding.



"Whether you're Christian or not, you have to be very much aware that the government is coming in, trying to tell you what to think, what to do, how to act, what to believe, what to create," she told CBN News.

"That is not a free America. When they can come in and bully you into an agenda, we do not have a Constitution," she said.



At a recent Washington, D.C., gathering, Stutzman was asked why she wouldn't take a settlement offered by Washington state.



"I wasn't offered a settlement. I was offered an ultimatum: 'Either you will do as I tell you to do; you will think the way I think; you will perform the way I think you should perform and create. And if you don't, I'm going to destroy you,'" Stutzman said.



Kelvin Cochran found himself in a similar situation when he lost his job as Atlanta's fire chief after defending the biblical model of marriage in a private book written for a church men's group.



"Regretfully, we're seeing a trend to where if you openly live out your faith, it could actually cost you your career or your business," Cochran said.



Meanwhile, the owners of a Phoenix art studio are fighting a city ordinance that could jail them if they ever refuse to do art or calligraphy for a same-sex wedding or even publicize why they wouldn't.

"And it's very scary when the government has the power to tell a business or really anyone 'You can post this statement on your website…the internet…you can't post THAT statement,'" said the studio owners' lead attorney, Jon Scruggs.



Kerri Kupec, with the Alliance Defending Freedom, represents Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker who was found guilty by the state's Civil Rights Commission for refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding.



"They compared Jack to perpetrators of the Holocaust and slave owners," Kupec told CBN News. "This was extra upsetting because Jack's father had fought in World War II and was part of the D-Day invasion."



Adamson says the rising tide of hostility towards people of faith doesn't come as a surprise.

"Jesus has promised us that this kind of thing would happen at some point," he said. "So I think it's just a reality that as our culture changes and we hold to the truths of God that we're going to face this kind of thing."



"We no longer really live in a free marketplace of ideas," Scruggs observed. "We live in a society where the government can tell us what to say and believe. So that should be concerning for not just people of faith…of all faiths, but people of all beliefs."



But these Christian entrepreneurs insist that in this decaying culture, it's important to make stands like they have.

"Jesus specifically said, 'If you deny me publicly, I'll deny you before my father in heaven,'" Cochran said. "So, when we have to make a choice — according to the way I was raised — when you have to make a choice between your faith and your job, you choose your faith."