LGBT groups are alarmed by a leaked
copy of a draft executive order they say would allow discrimination.
Titled “Establishing a
Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” the
four-page draft order was first reported by The Nation.
The order broadly defines a religious
organization to include “any organization, including closely held
for-profit corporations.” Its protections of “religious freedom”
are also sweeping: “when providing social services, education, or
healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others;
receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating
in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal,
State or local governments.”
The draft order seeks to create
exemptions in the law for a person or organization who “believes,
speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief
that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and
one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a
marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an
individual's immutable biological sex as objectively determined by
anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human
life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of
life.”
Leak of the order comes less than 48
hours after the Trump administration announced it would keep in place
a 2014 executive order signed by then-President Barack Obama barring
federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT workers.
In a statement announcing the decision,
the White House said that Trump was “determined to protect the
rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community” and that
the president was “respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights.”
Chad Griffin, president of the Human
Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights advocate,
dubbed the order Trump's “license to discriminate.”
“The leaked draft of Donald Trump's
License to Discriminate order is sweeping and dangerous. It reads
like a wishlist from some of the most radical anti-equality
activists,” Griffin said. “If true, it seems this White House is
poised to wildly expand anti-LGBTQ discrimination across all facets
of the government – even if he does maintain the Obama EO. If
Donald Trump goes through with even a fraction of this order, he'll
reveal himself as a true enemy to LGBTQ people. We’ve already seen
that the Trump administration is willing to go after women,
immigrants, people of color, and most frighteningly, people who
disagree with him.”
Ira Lupu, a professor emeritus at the
George Washington University Law School, told
The
Nation that the draft order “might invite federal employees
to refuse on religious grounds to process applications or respond to
questions from those whose benefits depend on same sex marriages,”
which could “lead to a situation where marriage equality was being
de facto undermined by federal employees, especially in religiously
conservative communities.”