President’s 1-2 punch wallops birth control, LGBT rights

Directives gain support of social conservatives

WASHINGTON — In a one-two punch elating religious conservatives, President Donald Trump’s administration is allowing more employers to opt out of no-cost birth control for workers and issuing sweeping religious-freedom directions that could override many anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people and others.

At a time Trump finds himself embattled on many fronts, the two directives — issued almost simultaneously Friday — demonstrated the president’s eagerness to retain the loyalty of social conservatives who make up a key part of his base.

“President Trump is demonstrating his commitment to undoing the anti-faith policies of the previous administration and restoring true religious freedom,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

Challenges planned

Liberal advocacy groups, including those supporting LGBT and reproductive rights, were outraged.

“The Trump administration is saying to employers, ‘If you want to discriminate, we have your back,’ ” said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center.

Her organization is among several that are planning to challenge the birth-control rollback in court. The American Civil Liberties Union filed such a lawsuit less than three hours after the rules were issued.

Xavier Becerra, the Democratic attorney general of California, said he planned to file a similar lawsuit as soon as feasible. Other Democratic attorneys general said they were mulling the same step.

Both directives had been in the works for months, with activists on both sides of a culture war on edge about the timing and the details.

‘A code of conduct’

The religious-liberty directive, issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, instructs federal agencies to do as much as possible to accommodate those who claim their religious freedoms are being violated. The guidance effectively lifts a burden from religious objectors to prove their beliefs about marriage or other topics that affect various actions are sincerely held.

In what is likely to be one of the more contested aspects of the document, the Justice Department states religious organizations can hire workers based on religious beliefs and an employee’s willingness “to adhere to a code of conduct.”

Many conservative Christian schools and faith-based agencies require employees to adhere to moral codes that ban sex outside marriage and same-sex relationships, among other behavior.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm, called it “a great day for religious freedom.”

But JoDee Winterhof of the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTrights group, depicted the two directives as “an all-out assault, on women, LGBT people and others” as the administration fulfilled a “wish list” of the religious right.