TRUMP FULFILLS RELIGIOUS RIGHT’S WISHES
President is winning praise for recent actions.
NEW YORK» When Donald Trump became president, conservative religious leaders drew up “wish lists” of steps they hoped he would take to oppose abortion and rein in the LGBTQ-rights movement. With a flurry of recent actions, Trump’s administration is now winning their praise for aggressively fulfilling many of their goals.
Mat Staver, president of the legal advocacy organization Liberty Counsel, said Trump has fulfilled about 90% of the goals on a list that Staver and other conservative leaders compiled.
“In the first two years of his administration, he’s achieved more than all of the presidents combined since Ronald Reagan,” Staver said. “He’s been the most proreligious freedom and pro-life president in modern history.”
One of the most dramatic steps — hailed by conservatives and decried by liberals — came this week when the Department of Health and Human Services implemented a new rule for the federal family planning program known as Title X. Planned Parenthood, long a target of religious conservatives because of its role as the leading U.S. abortion provider, quit the program — walking away from tens of millions of dollars in grants — rather than comply with a new rule prohibiting clinics from referring women for abortions.
Last week, the Labor Department proposed a rule that is expected to shield federal contractors from discrimination complaints regarding hiring and firing decisions motivated by religious beliefs. Critics say the rule, if implemented, would enable employers to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
The Justice Department filed a brief Friday telling the Supreme Court that federal law allows firing workers for being transgender. The brief is related to three cases the high court will hear in its upcoming term related to LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace.
Earlier this year, Health and Human Services issued a waiver allowing a state-contracted foster care agency in South Carolina to deny services to same-sex and nonChristian families. HHS also moved to revoke newly won health care discrimination protections for transgender people.
These and other actions aimed at curtailing abortion rights and LGBTQ rights have helped many conservative Christians overlook other aspects of Trump’s presidency, such as his often-divisive rhetoric on Twitter and at rallies.
The Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the Southern Baptist mega-church First Baptist Dallas and a frequent White House guest, predicted Trump would win more evangelical votes in 2020 than he did in 2016, when they helped provide his margin of victory.
“When he ran in 2016 and promised prolife, pro-religious freedom policies, most evangelicals who voted for him didn’t know whether he would or could fulfill those promises,” Jeffress said. “When they look back now, they see that he checked off all of those goals . ... He’ll win by an even larger margin on basis of promises kept.”
The same phenomenon being celebrated by religious conservatives is viewed with alarm by liberal activists.
For the religious right, “Every day is Christmas,” said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who worries that the mantra of “religious freedom” is being used to protect some Americans while hurting others.