Leaked Draft of ‘Religious Freedom’ Executive Order Targeting LGBT Community Stirs Anxiety and Anger

Sweeping Executive Order Would Enable Massive Anti-LGBT Discrimination Under Cloak of ‘Religious Freedom’

A draft “religious freedom” executive order leaked to news outlets Tuesday is creating overlapping states of anxiety and anger among LGBTQ people and their allies. Its title is, “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom.”

First reported by The Nation, the proposed language of the draft would make nearly total allowance for exemptions by any person, church, religious organization or for-profit business, allowing them to claim religious objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, contraceptives, abortion, and gender identity outside of their particular viewpoint. 

As word spread Wednesday evening, Zack Ford, LGBT Editor for the Center for American Progress news site, ThinkProgress, reacted, writing:

“President Trump’s promise not to rescind President Obama’s 2014 executive order protecting the LGBT employees of federal contractors may very well have meant nothing. Rumors of an anti-LGBT ‘religious freedom’ order being developed this week proved to be quite accurate, and though it doesn’t technically rescind the protections, it would create such a broad license to discriminate that it virtually overrides them. And LGBT people aren’t the only target.'”

The White House did not respond to requests for comment Monday about whether a religious freedom executive order was being considered or a draft circulated, however, in answer to a question from The Washington Blade during the daily press briefing, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said, “I’m not getting ahead of the executive orders that we may or may not issue. There is a lot of executive orders, a lot of things that the president has talked about and will continue to fulfill, but we have nothing on that front now.” 

Reacting to the language of the draft, Marty Lederman, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and an expert on church-state separation and religious freedom told The Nation, “This executive order would appear to require agencies to provide extensive exemptions from a staggering number of federal laws—without regard to whether such laws substantially burden religious exercise.”

He went on to note that the exemptions could themselves violate federal law or license individuals and private parties to violate federal law. “The exemptions would raise serious First Amendment questions, as well, because they would go far beyond what the Supreme Court has identified as the limits of permissive religious accommodations.” It would be “astonishing,” he said, “if the Office of Legal Counsel certifies the legality of this blunderbuss order.”

RELATED: Exclusive: Executive Order to Roll Back Obama’s Federal Protections for LGBT Employees in the Works

Ford stated, “To be clear, it doesn’t protect people regardless of what they believe on LGBT issues, sex before marriage, or abortion; it only protects people people who take the religious conservative position on those issues. It is a flagrant endorsement of one set of religious beliefs over another.”

Whether or not the draft or a variant of it will be finalized, signed and then released remains to be seen. However, responding to ABC News on Wednesday, the White House did not dispute the authenticity of the draft, but did claim that it is one of hundreds of circulating executive orders that do not all reflect administration thinking or intended policy. White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders explained, “We do not have plans to sign anything at this time but will let you know when we have any updates.” 

Rumors swirled that President Trump will sign or announce the order at Thursday morning’s National Prayer Breakfast.

Brody Levesque is the Chief Political Correspondent for The New Civil Rights Movement.
You may contact Brody at Brody.Levesque@thenewcivilrightsmovement.com