‘The Language Is Very, Very Strong’

PresidentÂ Donald Trump is expected to sign an anti-LGBT “religious freedom executive order on Thursday, the National Day of Prayer. Some believe Vice President Mike Pence, in partnership with anti-gay hate groups, is behind the push for him to sign it this week.

Politico first reported the scheduling of the signing, noting it “would represent a major triumph for Vice President Mike Penceâ€”whose push for religious-freedom legislation backfired mightily when he served as governor of Indianaâ€”and his allies in the conservative movement.”

The White House is planning on having the president sign it during Thursday’sÂ gathering of national faith leaders and “family friendly” Christian organizations, according to sources in the administration who tell NCRM that the language of the Executive Order remains essentially unchanged from the draft leaked last February to The Nation magazine.

The language of the original executive order drew national outrage, especiallyÂ among the LGBT community and equality supporters. It could gut President Barack Obama’s executive orders prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination among federal contractors, which employ millions of workers across the U.S.Â

The Nation’s Sarah Posner, who originally reported on the leaked draft earlier this year, described it as seeking “to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity,” and noted it “seeks to curtail womenâ€™s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act.”

After Trump failed to sign the order, anti-LGBT extremists, includingÂ Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow at the anti-gay hate groupÂ Family Research Council andÂ domestic policy chair ofÂ the Trump transition team toldÂ Michelangelo Signorile atÂ The Huffington PostÂ the order was far from dead.

“Pence and a small team of conservative allies quickly began working behind the scenes to revise the language, and in recent weeks have ratcheted up the pressure on Trump to sign it,” Politico notes. “The new draft is being tightly held, but one influential conservative who saw the text said it hasnâ€™t been dialed back muchâ€”if at allâ€”since the February leak. ‘The language is very, very strong,’ the source said.”

The ACLU has already weighed in, promising to challenge it in court:

And if President Trump signs an order that would allow religion to be used as an excuse to discriminate, we will sue. #SeeYouInCourtAgain https://t.co/I9f259RSXP â€” ACLU National (@ACLU) May 2, 2017

UPDATE I: 4:57 PM EDTÂ â€“

Buzzfeed’s Dominic Holden adds:

â€œWe will fight this with everything we have,â€ Lambda Legal senior counsel Camilla Taylor said Tuesday, adding, â€œWe are prepared to sue in a very short timeframe if the executive order closely resembles the leaked drafts.â€ … James Esseks, director of the ACLU Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, & HIV Project, added in an interview, â€œWe are ready to sue if they do something that authorizes discrimination. If Trump signs an order like the one that we saw a couple months ago, it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.â€

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