The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit accusing a school board in Virginia of violating the constitutional rights of two Christian students by enforcing a gender-identity policy that officials say punished them for their religious beliefs.

According to the DOJ, the Loudoun County School Board suspended two Stone Bridge High School boys for 10 days after they reported an incident in the boys’ locker room. A female student had allegedly entered the locker room and recorded audio and video of the boys inside.

Several boys reported the incident, including the two Christian students whose religious beliefs require them to use biologically accurate pronouns and sex-segregated facilities, the lawsuit says.

Loudoun County allegedly applied its Policy 8040 — a gender-identity rule that the DOJ says requires students and staff to “accept and promote gender ideology” regardless of religious beliefs.

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“Plaintiffs faced a choice: violate their consciences or stay true to their beliefs,” the lawsuit argues.

School officials determined the two boys committed “sex-based discrimination” and “sexual harassment,” according to the suit. As punishment, the DOJ says the district suspended them for 10 days and ordered them to undergo a “Comprehensive Student Support Plan.”

BOYS SUSPENDED IN TRANSGENDER LOCKER ROOM CONTROVERSY SPARK GOP BACKLASH IN VIRGINIA

The Justice Department claims the school board violated the boys’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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“Students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. “Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality.”

The Loudoun County School Board did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

A father and son stranded barefoot and soaking wet in a mudhole in the Florida Everglades were rescued Thursday night, when deputies spotted the fire they had lit to stay warm.

The men got stuck in the mud in the Big Cypress National Preserve when their ATV ran out of gas, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office said. With night approaching, the men called 911 for help.

“My four-wheeler ran out of gas,” the father told the 911 dispatcher. “We got stuck in a mudhole, and now we’re just here stranded. Pretty far and almost out of water with my son.”

The preserve is a vast swamp that stretches 729,000 acres across multiple counties.

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The father said he and his son both lost their shoes in the mud and were barefoot. He was also concerned about approaching wildlife as night began to fall.

“But the sun’s going down and the alligators are hungry, buddy,” he told the dispatcher, per WMGT-TV.

Deputies said the men were soaking wet and started a fire to keep warm.

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The sheriff’s Aviation Bureau launched a helicopter and tracked the men’s coordinates. They spotted the fire the men had started and saw the duo waving at the helicopter.

Video released by the sheriff’s office shows the father and son being hoisted to safety. The sheriff’s office added that the men extinguished the fire upon their rescue.

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No injuries were reported.

“This is another example of CCSO’s great training put into practice and the success that comes from seamless partnerships,” the sheriff’s office said.

Just days after another stabbing on Charlotte’s light rail, and only days after Iryna’s Law went into effect, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden warned that it would lead to dangerous overcrowding.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein signed Iryna’s Law in October, which was named after 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed to death on the Charlotte light rail in August. Decarlos Brown Jr., a repeat offender, has been charged in her murder. The legislation imposes stricter pretrial release rules for repeat and violent offenders.

Speaking at a Monday news conference, the sheriff said the law adds numerous new requirements for his office and added that politicians used Zarutska’s stabbing as a “political agenda.”

“And we believe that the only reason that this caught national attention is because it was caught on video and it was displayed across the United States, and our local politicians at that time saw it was a political agenda, or they could highlight her as a refugee and not an immigrant,” McFadden said. “This is why they created Iryna’s Law.”

CHARLOTTE RESIDENTS SAY THEY FEEL LESS SAFE AS CITY FACES SECOND TRANSIT STABBING

McFadden insisted that the new legislation will lead to overcrowding in Mecklenburg County Jail.

“This law will cause our detention centers’ numbers to rise. We will have more people staying inside a detention center at a longer stay than normally. Because it attacks the new bond referendum and it attacks also the discretion that the magistrates and the judge has on releasing people,” he said.

The sheriff said that following Zarutska’s violent attack in August, local judges “were attacked violently on social media.”

“And we took additional measures to protect them because of the violent nature of social media, and parts of other media, and also just the violence that they received just personally,” he said. “And so, they live in fear now, and I have to say that, because for an entire day, we had to talk to the magistrates on how to live safely, how to travel safely, and in the middle of all of that, they were concerned after the shooting of Charlie Kirk, because they said to me, ‘Well, what if they shoot me because of this?’ And so, they’re going to be more cautious and reluctant to allow people to be released.”

LENIENT JUDGES IGNORE RED FLAGS, CAVE TO SOFT-ON-CRIME PRESSURES AS THEY RELEASE REPEAT OFFENDERS: ATTORNEY

He argued that county staff will now be responsible for managing “a much more difficult population,” particularly individuals with heightened mental-health needs who must remain in custody longer under the new rules.

“On top of the other population, of the people who are arrested for robbery, rape and murder. All these people are still gonna be housed here at the detention center. So when people say, ‘Well, is that gonna cause a problem for your staff?’ Of course, it is. Why? Because my staff is not gonna be subject to having to deal with people with much more mental health problems than we had in the past. Or we’re gonna be dealing with families who will not understand why their loved ones are not being released.”

WATCH: North Carolina lawmakers pass tough-on-crime bill in honor of Iryna Zarutska

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The sheriff said that none of the new requirements were accompanied by state funding.

“House Bill 307 did not bring us any resources, and it did not bring any funding,” he said, adding that lawmakers should not impose such sweeping mandates without input from the agencies that must carry them out.

He asked legislators in Raleigh to include sheriffs in future conversations about criminal-justice policy, saying they “need a seat at the table and a voice” when new laws directly affect local detention operations.