Report: Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner Stopped Trump From Signing Anti-LGBT Executive Order

The LGBT Community Is Still Not Safe From President Trump’s Attacks

President Donald Trump might have signed an anti-LGBT executive order that would have revoked President Barack Obama’s historic 2014 protections, but his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, stepped in to stop him. So says a just-published report in Politico, which cites “multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.”

According to Politico White House reporter Annie Karni, “two sources close to Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who have in the past been supporters of gay rights, said the young couple were both in favor of putting out a clear statement from the president, promising to uphold the 2014 Obama executive order and stopping the momentum for the turnaround in its tracks.”

The LGBT community is still not safe from President Trump’s attacks – and his pen. The anti-LGBT order might be on hold for now, but there’s a “religious freedom” order reportedly being debated, or in the works. Unsurprisingly, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins is deeply involved.

“Members of the religious right with ties to the Trump administration said they have been lead to believe that some changes will still be coming,” Politico’s report continues. “‘I think they’re going to address the conflict that exists currently, which would preclude religious organizations from contracting with the federal government,’ Tony Perkins, CEO of the Family Research Council, said in an interview. ‘I feel confident that they have an appreciation of religious freedom, and I’m pretty certain they’re going to address it. I’m talking to people in the Trump administration, and I know they understand the importance of this.'”

For a week rumors have flown that President Trump will be signing a sweeping “religious freedom” executive order, which would effectively nullify President Obama’s 2014 orders. According to one draft of the religious freedom order, people of faith could effectively be exempt from any, or nearly any, federal action against them by merely citing a deeply-held religious or moral belief.

Unsurprisingly, Vice President Mike Pence, who is virulently anti-gay and has worked for decades in Congress and as the governor of Indiana, against LGBT people, also has the ear of the President.

“Perkins said that Vice President Mike Pence has been involved and is ‘clearly sensitive to this.’ If so, the fight over LGBT rights could reveal a fault line between Pence, an evangelical Catholic who as governor of Indiana signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2015; and Kushner, who is Jewish and whose social circle includes socially progressive New Yorkers.”

It’s worth repeating: The LGBT community is still not safe from President Trump’s attacks.