Posted on 02/03/2017 11:45:29 AM PST by drewh
Members of the religious right with ties to the Trump administration say they have been lead to believe that some changes will still be coming.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump helped lead the charge to scuttle a draft executive order that would have overturned Obama-era enforcements of LGBT rights in the workplace, ultiple sources with knowledge of the situation said.
A draft executive order on LGBT rights which outlines how to roll back former president Barack Obamas protections and expand legal exemptions based on religious beliefs has been circulating among journalists and worried progressive groups this week.
But two sources close to Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who have in the past been supporters of gay rights, said the young couple were both in favor of putting out a clear statement from the president, promising to uphold the 2014 Obama executive order and stopping the momentum for the turnaround in its tracks.
On Tuesday night, the White House released a statement noting that President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community. President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election.
The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump, the statement continued.
White House officials downplayed the turnaround, suggesting that the draft LGBT executive order was never going to reach Trumps desk for his signature. They described it as one of some 200 executive orders that were contemplated during the transition some by outside groups, some by transition officials and that it was never intended to become law, even without Kushner or anyone else pushing back on it.
Some are real, some are drafts of things people like and some are ideas people from outside have suggested, a White House official said, describing the executive orders that have been written.
But the statement did not quash the chatter completely. Members of the religious right with ties to the Trump administration said they have been lead to believe that some changes will still be coming. I think theyre going to address the conflict that exists currently, which would preclude religious organizations from contracting with the federal government, Tony Perkins, CEO of the Family Research Council, said in an interview. I feel confident that they have an appreciation of religious freedom, and Im pretty certain theyre going to address it. Im talking to people in the Trump administration, and I know they understand the importance of this.
Perkins said that Vice President Mike Pence has been involved and is clearly sensitive to this. If so, the fight over LGBT rights could reveal a fault line between Pence, an evangelical Catholic who as governor of Indiana signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2015; and Kushner, who is Jewish and whose social circle includes socially progressive New Yorkers.
There are some in Trumps family that have some views on these things, said a source close to the discussions. Thats where the decision is ultimately being made.
Democratic groups like the nonprofit Center for American Progress are also continuing to fight against changes they expect could still be coming. If accurate, this executive order would sanction sweeping taxpayer-funded discrimination against LGBT people, women, and their families in blatant violation of Trumps promise to protect our LGBT citizens, said Winnie Stachelberg, executive vice president for external affairs at CAP. Stachelberg said the White House statement left open a channel to broaden religious exemptions that prevent gay and transgender individuals from getting health care, or fostering a child.
There are a lot of ideas that are being floated out, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said at the briefing on Thursday when asked about the LGBT executive order. Part of it is, the president does all the time, he asks for input, he asks for ideas, and on a variety of subjects there are staffing procedures that go on where people have a thought or an idea and it goes through the process.
Some of the confusion stems from how the executive orders have been written. It wouldnt be surprising to me if there were lots of documents floating around that people wrote, where they thought the administration might go, said James Carafano, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation, who advised the Trump transition on foreign policy issues.
This presidents number one priority is demonstrating to the people that got him elected that he is doing the peoples business, said Carafano.
But Carafano warned that an LGBT executive order would not make sense right now, because its not in line with any campaign promise made by Trump the first Republican nominee to feature an openly gay speaker at his convention. For them to put out an executive order that didnt try and match up with the priorities that he campaigned on would be an unforced error, said Carafano.
So what? Trump +99, -1.
In addition, conservative Court judges will eventually overturn it.
In the big picture, it is inconsequential.
Neither did I but I also don't believe any more stories when they include:
"But two sources"
That dude named Sources is only the second most quoted guy behind his pal "Anonymous Sources".............
Something President Trump wasn’t going to do anyway. Fake news.
An absolutely transparent attempt on the part of the media to peel conservative support from President Trump. Float some bogus executive order he never even considered, and then pretend he was talked down by his family. My reaction? FUMSM.
President Trump stated in his inauguration speech that he is for the protection and rights of every American including lgbtq etc. It’s a non-issue
[[While the LGBTQIM executive orders are both evil and unconstitutional, they are not the place to spend political capital right now.]]
The former victims of the residents of Soddom And Ghomoorah would dissagree
I was thinking Ecclesiastes 3:1 "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
I am well aware that I could be wrong, but my thought is that the nonsense LGBTPML rules are doing far less immediate moral damage than other problems we face today (the rules are not the cause of homosexual activity, just a peripheral response to that activity). The executive orders are wrong, but they are not the first priorities that should be addressed. There is a time for fixing that error, and I hope the right time will be soon, but I am comfortable with a decision that the right time is not this month or even not this year if that allows President Trump to address more problems that are a bigger issue for America and for the free world (both in my view important issues to Christianity).
I would argue that President Trump can do more by getting his judicial appointments though with less controversy than he can by making this part of the fight an open battle before his cabinet has even been confirmed. I could be wrong, and on this issue especially I worry that I may have misjudged, but I think we make more progress by choosing which fights to have openly and which ones to win by attrition.
Thank you.
That is how I see this battle. President Trump cannot issue an executive order that will stop all gay activity in the country. What he can do is peripheral - important symbolically but not substantively. It is better to get 2-4 conservative Justices in place, hundreds of conservative federal judges who believe in the rule of law, and a smaller footprint for government as a whole. That weakening of the Left and their source of power will allow us to win on the social issues later, perhaps two years from now or even in the first year of his next term. We lose out on some quick, feel-good wins, but we get more and bigger wins in the long run. I hope.
I am not okay with cutting government "later" as the republicans have always promised. I am more than okay with fighting the necessary battles in the right order, and no one could claim that President Trump is not already fighting and winning several of the battles that we elected him to fight.
You are so right! Jared Kushner has not shed his socially liberal instincts. He haw no place in the WH. He is there simply to use his in-law status to block Bannon and Conway.
Who the hell cares about cutting government or building walls if this is the kind of sh!t upstanding, moral Americans have to deal with?
Does anyone even know how much money the government spent in Sodom and Gomorrah? Does anyone even care?
Those were a series of purely evil acts, and they were completely reprehensible. They were also all (as far as I know) done by state "courts" and officials, such as Oregon's Labor Commissioner, Brad Avakian. In many and probably most cases, they are outside the authority of the President of the United States, and the primary Executive Branch remedy is the appointment of the federal judges who may eventually assert authority over the dispute.
In the long term, the remedy is https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242 18 U.S. Code § 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law
"Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States . . . shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death."
Eventually, the thugs on the left need to be prosecuted for their crimes against our fundamental rights. I believe that this is not the time for that battle, just for reminding them that their turn for prosecution is coming. I would like to see Brad Avakian, and every similar fascist, spend at least a decade in prison for their abusive actions that denied decent Americans the fundamental First Amendment constitutional right to the free exercise of their religious beliefs. Eventually. But not when that attempt could derail so much more, including the nominations and confirmations of the judges needed for those prosecutions.
Ditto. I read (fake news?) Trump was going to do something for religious freedom next week.
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