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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-considering-order-on-religious-freedom-that-critics-warn-could-lead-to-discrimination/2017/02/02/631ea41a-e8ee-11e6-bf6f-301b6b443624_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop&utm_term=.1d787b0da385
"President Trump is considering how to allow Americans to opt out of complying with federal policies and regulations on the grounds of religion, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday, a move that critics said could open the door to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender or gender identity.
“There’s clearly a lot of evidence in the last couple of years of the government coming in with regulations and policies that have, frankly, denied people the ability to live according to their faith,” Spicer said during his daily briefing. “People should be able to practice their religion, express their religion, express areas of their faith without reprisal. And I think that pendulum sometimes swings the other way, in the name of political correctness.”
Spicer’s comments, which came on the same day Trump told the audience at the National Prayer Breakfast that his administration “will do everything possible to defend and protect religious liberty in our land,” could signal a sea change in how the federal government balances protections for gay, transgender and reproductive rights against individuals’ religious objections.
Administration officials are considering a proposed executive order, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, that would provide individuals and organizations wide latitude in denying services, employment and other benefits on the basis of their religious beliefs, though Spicer emphasized that Trump had no immediate plans to issue a directive on the issue.
“There are a lot of ideas that are being floated out,” he said. “But until the president makes up his mind and gives feedback and decides that that’s final, there’s nothing to announce.”
The proposal, titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” is one of several dozen draft directives written on a range of topics by people within the administration, on the transition team or working for outside groups.
Trump did not discuss any specific actions he might take at the National Prayer breakfast, but said: “Freedom of religion is a sacred right, but it is also a right under threat all around us.”
In the event that the order is actually issued, multiple groups are already preparing to challenge it on the grounds that it effectively sanctions discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, women and minorities.
Lambda Legal chief executive Rachel Tiven said in an interview that it amounts to “an invitation to theocracy. It is the privileging of some religions over others, and an invitation by members of those religions to flout the law.”
While the draft document does not mention Christianity by name, it specifically outlines views held by conservative Christians — including opposition to abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and the idea that a person’s gender can differ from their anatomy — as beliefs deserving protection.
The measure prohibits the Treasury Department from penalizing or denying tax benefits to any person or organization who believes, 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 and as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception.”..."