President Trump’s new executive order “promoting free speech and religious liberty” directed the executive branch to “vigorously enforce” religious freedom protections. Among other things, the order directed Cabinet secretaries to “consider issuing amended regulations” consistent with current federal law for groups that have religious objections to providing their employees insurance coverage for contraceptive care.

Religious-freedom advocates were split on whether the order had much practical impact. The language in the final bill did not include the exemptions that many advocates had hoped for, providing religious exemptions for federal laws that religious groups did not agree with.

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At the signing ceremony, Trump claimed that the Obama administration’s abuses against religious freedom were “widespread,” and cited as an example an incident where soldiers were “precluded” from receiving religious items at a military hospital. Was that the case?

The Facts

The White House did not respond to our request for clarification, but Trump likely was referring to a 2011 controversy at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Many politicians and groups have mischaracterized this incident since then. (Our colleague Dan Lamothe of Checkpoint summarized the controversy and ensuing mischaracterizations here.)

It all stems from a September 2011 memo issued by the Navy, outlining guidelines for visitors to Walter Reed. The policy included his restriction: “No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.”

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This line went unnoticed until a patient at Walter Reed brought it to the attention of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, which then alerted members of Congress.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) spoke out against the policy on the House floor on Dec. 2, 2011: “They’ve given their all for America, and they’ve defended and taken an oath to the Constitution, and here they are. The people that come to visit them can’t bring a religious artifact? They can’t bring a Bible? They can’t use them in the services? A priest can’t walk in with the Eucharist and offer communion to a patient who might be on their deathbed because it’s prohibited in this memo.”

Within days, Walter Reed apologized and announced it was rescinding and rewriting the visitor guidelines. The hospital said the policy was written by a small group of officials and was not thoroughly reviewed. “If the family, if friends, wanted to bring things in, it was fine,” hospital spokeswoman Sandy Dean was quoted in a Dec. 7, 2011, Gannett News Service article. “The way the policy was written was incorrect. We are rewriting the policy.”

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The hospital said the restriction on religious items was not enforced, but it was written to protect patients from unwanted proselytizers after patients and families complained of religious groups aggressively approaching them in inpatient wards. Patients declare their religious preferences when they arrive to the hospital, and the guideline was intended to protect their religious preferences, according to the hospital.

“In 2011, there was a misinterpretation of our visitation policy, and we’ve since corrected that policy. It was too ambiguous, so it was rewritten to ensure that everyone was aware that Bibles and other religious materials have always been, and will remain, available for patient use at Walter Reed National Medical Center,” Dean told The Fact Checker.

After King spoke on the House floor, he and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) met with Walter Reed senior leadership about the policy. On Dec. 7, 2011, the lawmakers announced that the “Defense Department appears to have acted in good faith by retracting the original statement and releasing a statement of regret.”

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On Jan. 24, 2012, about a month and half after King criticized the policy, Walter Reed issued a memo that canceled the earlier instructions and removed the restriction on religious items, Snopes.com found. Four months after that, the hospital issued an information paper further clarifying what happened: “Family members have been and will always be allowed to bring religious materials and texts,” read the paper, obtained by Snopes.

Family Research Council Executive Vice President Jerry Boykin said his group was glad to see the policy quickly revised, and said the original policy was so poorly written that he doubted senior leadership knew it existed until the group brought it to King’s attention: “It was so obviously foolish and such a usurpation of the individual freedoms of the men and women that have served the country, that I question whether it was ever reviewed by the senior leaders of Walter Reed. I’d be surprised if it was.”

The Pinocchio Test

Trump appears to be pointing to an outdated controversy over a poorly worded September 2011 policy at Walter Reed. Trump characterized this as an “abuse” of religious freedom that “precluded” service members from receiving religious items from visitors.

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But this description lacks quite a bit of context. Once lawmakers caught wind of this policy and criticized it in December 2011, Walter Reed announced within five days that it was rescinding and revising it. The hospital clarified that the policy was not thoroughly reviewed, broadly worded and was never intended to limit family members and other visitors from bringing religious items for service members at the hospital.

Three Pinocchios

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