President Trump Signs 'Religious Freedom' Order Targeting Contraception Mandate

WASHINGTON, DC — President Trump signed an executive order Thursday, titled "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty," which aims to ease enforcement of Obamacare's contraception mandate, which requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception. It also empowers federal agencies to ease enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which prevents tax-exempt nonprofits from endorsing or denouncing political candidates. A senior administration official said this order will provide relief to religious people who are "persecuted" under these laws.

The signing coincided with the National Day of Prayer.

"We will never ever stand for religious discrimination," Trump said at the signing ceremony. "Never ever. Tolerance is the cornerstone of peace." This view stands in contrast to his campaign pledge to ban all Muslim immigration to the United States.

The order itself will not change the laws, which is up to Congress. The administration would not specify exactly what actions it expects the enforcement agencies to take in response to this executive order or what specific effects the order will have. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The contraception mandate, originally enforced under Obamacare, has been a target of conservatives for years. In a major case brought against the administration by Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court ruled that closely held corporations, such as Hobby Lobby, cannot be forced to provide birth control coverage to its employees through insurance. It also found that the Obama administration's alternative, which required companies to apply for a waiver that allows employees to obtain the coverage elsewhere, was not acceptable either.

A senior administration official said the Hobby Lobby exemption will now apply to more companies, not just closely held corporations. Presumably, this means larger companies that claim to have religious opposition to birth control will soon be able to buy plans for their employees that do not cover contraception.

The Johnson Amendment, which was named for President Lyndon B. Johnson who signed it, restricts the political advocacy of all organizations that file as nonprofits with the IRS, which provides them with tax benefits. Conservatives have long opposed the law, particularly as it applies to churches. Those who favor the amendment see it as a benefit that preachers cannot endorse or lobby against particular candidates for office from the church pulpit as long as they receive tax benefits, while detractors argue this law stifles religious expression.

"On this #NationalDayOfPrayer, I commend the Trump administration for taking action to restore the constitutional right to religious liberty," House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Twitter.

The Center for American Progress released a statement criticizing the order: "People of faith have already spoken: They don’t want partisanship from the pulpit."

It continued: "This order also targets the health and well-being of millions of people, including women and families for whom access to preventive care and contraceptive coverage is key to their economic security. Further, while done in the name of religious liberty, it empowers employers to impose health care restrictions on employees with no regard for the employees’ religious and moral convictions."

During the campaign, Trump said he would work to repeal the amendment, and this order is, in part, an attempt to live up to that promise. But since the law will remain on the books, it's not clear what the administration's executive order, which is supposed to provide "maximum enforcement discretion," will mean in the real world.

Rumors circulated early in the week that the executive order might weaken protections against discrimination of LGBT people in the workplace and elsewhere, but the final version of the text does not appear to apply to these cases at all.

The administration said it does not expect to receive any legal challenges on this order.

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Photo by Eric Thayer-Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images