Firestorm Coming: Draft Of Trump Executive Order May Deny Services To Gay, Transgender People
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Feb 2, 2017
In what may be the biggest firestorm set off by a Trump executive order to date, surpassing even the widespread angry response to the Trump immigration order, a draft of an executive order circulating in the Trump administration would dramatically expand the legal protections for individuals, organizations and employers on the grounds of their religious beliefs, and as the WSJ reports, would potentially allow the denial of services to gay and transgender people, and contraception coverage for employees.
The draft is titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom.” While it hasn’t been signed and may never make it to President Donald Trump’s desk, advocacy groups see the draft order as a broad statement of intent from a president who courted conservative Christian voters during the campaign by promising to expand the role of religion in public life. As the WSJ adds, the draft order lays out many of the proposals that conservative Christians have been requesting for years, including legal protections for organizations that claim religious objections to providing a wide range of services. It also directs federal agencies to “avoid potential violations of Religious Freedom”, instructing officials not to “coerce” religious entities or individuals into “participating in activities that violate their conscience.”
If this order or a similar one were signed, it would immediately plunge Mr. Trump into a debate over religious freedom, gay rights and reproductive rights, which has churned through states and courts for years—most recently with the disputes over transgender people’s use of bathrooms. Some religious groups have argued that they should not have to violate their beliefs in business, education or as civil servants. Corporations and sports leagues have largely sided with civil-rights groups and threatened to cancel events over legislation viewed as discriminatory.
Gay and transgender rights groups have already pounced on the draft order, calling it a “license to discriminate” that would effectively gut many existing protections for LGBT people by allowing those who claimed religious objections to ignore them. “If the White House did even a fraction of the things that are in this draft executive order, that would be an unprecedented rollback of LGBT equality and rights,” said David Stacy, director of government affairs for the Human Rights Campaign. “This would provide a blanket exemption for religious organizations not to have to follow any statute that they say violates their religious beliefs.”
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