Trump signs order giving religious groups greater political freedom

• Trump: ‘We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied, or silenced’

• President helps religious groups opt out of Obama’s contraception mandate

Donald Trump, in a long-anticipated overture to the religious right, signed an executive order on Thursday directing the IRS to weaken its enforcement of a rule barring churches and tax-exempt groups from endorsing political candidates.

With the same stroke of his pen, he took steps to resolve a longtime dispute over an Obama-era rule requiring contraception coverage in employer healthcare plans, in favor of religious employers that oppose birth control.

Trump signed the order as he marked the National Day of Prayer. Throughout the campaign and his presidency, Trump and his inner circle have portrayed religious rights as being under serious assault.

“We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced any more and we will never ever stand for religious discrimination,” Trump said to a group of faith leaders gathered in the White House Rose Garden. “With this executive order, we are ending the attacks on your religious liberty.”

But even before Trump’s announcement, many supporters expressed disappointment that the order did not carry stronger language. Evangelical leaders and scholars briefed on the order Wednesday night said it had been watered down from a draft executive order that leaked earlier this year.

That draft established a sweeping set of religious exemptions, using language that would have given millions of Americans “a license to discriminate” against LGBT people and unwed parents, civil rights advocates warned.

The order will direct the IRS to use the maximum amount of discretion when applying the Johnson amendment, the rule limiting endorsements from the pulpit. It reduces the likelihood that a religious organization would suffer penalties or lose its tax-exempt status if one of its leaders were to make a political endorsement.

The order also directs the executive branch to consider new regulations “to address conscience-based objections to the preventive care mandate”. That will likely result in a new Health Department policy that accommodates religious groups that object to telling the government if they have opted out of the mandate to provide employees with contraceptive coverage.

“It shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom,” the order reads.

Reproductive rights groups and campaign finance watchdogs immediately condemned the order. “Americans did not vote to have their healthcare taken away or to have their access to birth control cut off,” said Ilyse Hogue, the president of Naral Pro-Choice America.

The Center for Reproductive Rights announced it was ready to block the order in court.

“For decades, the charitable political activities prohibition has kept tax-exempt religious institutions focused on their religious missions, freeing them from the pressures associated with partisan political campaigns,” said Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center. “The charitable political activities prohibition was adopted and has been supported on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties since the 1950s. Opening the door to a flood of unaccountable political money will undermine the social welfare purpose of religious institutions.”

Contrary to reports from earlier this week, the order seems to have stopped short of asserting that individuals and organizations have a right to refuse services based on religious beliefs.

Trump’s administration was twice rumored to be preparing a sweeping executive order that would have given any government worker or organization receiving federal funding – such as a hospital, nursing home, school, or university – a right of refusal, which was widely seen as targeting LGBT people.

But reports that Trump would sign such an order – the first rumblings were in February – do not appear to have been borne out.

Mark Silk, a professor at Trinity College in Connecticut who writes on religious freedom, called the new order “very weak tea”, especially compared to the draft that leaked earlier this year. “It’s gestural, as far as I can tell,” Silk said.

Others gave the order glowing praise.

Ralph Reed, a longtime evangelical leader and founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, called the provisions on which he was briefed an “excellent first step. This administratively removes the threat of harassment.”

Trump promised to “totally destroy” the Johnson amendment in February. Fully abolishing the regulation would take an act of Congress, but Trump is essentially directing the IRS not to enforce the prohibitions.

The order will also deal a regulatory blow to the Affordable Care Act just as Republicans are poised to roll back key elements of Obama’s signature achievement in Congress.

Under the ACA, also known as Obamacare, the Obama administration required employee healthcare plans to offer coverage for a range of contraceptive devices and services.

However, it offered an exemption for groups with a religious mission that opposed contraception on moral grounds. To claim the exemption, an organization simply had to notify the health department that it would not cover contraception.

Many religious groups objected to even notifying the government that they didn’t intend to cover contraceptives. Because the government would make alternate arrangements to cover their employees, those groups argued, it was tantamount to the employers providing the coverage themselves.

In spring of 2016, the supreme court heard a challenge to the exemption process from a group of nuns known as the Little Sisters of the Poor. The court declined to rule on the principles at the heart of the case and instead directed the government and the Little Sisters to reach a compromise.

Tom Price, the head of the health department, said his department would take action on Trump’s order later Thursday.

The American Civil Liberties Union promised to file a lawsuit immediately, even as the text of the order was still unavailable to the public.

“The actions taken today are a broadside to our country’s long-standing commitment to the separation of church and state,” said Anthony Romero, the ACLU’s executive director. “Whether by executive order or through backroom deals, it’s clear that the Trump administration and Congressional leadership are using religion as a wedge to further divide the country and permit discrimination.”