Trump's New "Religious Rights" Proposal Is Discrimination At Its Finest

Just a mere two months after the 50th anniversary of Stonewall and 4 years after gay marriage was legalized, it’s hard to believe that the US is still struggling to make progress in LGBTQ+ rights. However, just last week, the Trump administration released a religious rights proposal that has drawn harsh criticism for allowing employers to be discriminatory to LGBTQ+ employees, which will impact the 42,000 businesses that contract with the federal government across the nation.  

The proposal, titled “Implementing Legal Requirements Regarding the Equal Opportunity Clause’s Religious Exemption,” seeks to “clarify the scope” of religious rights federal employers are guaranteed. The 46 page long document aims to achieve this clarification of religious rights laws by expanding upon definitions that have been used for over 40 years. These definitions were put into place in 1972 as an expansion of Title VII, which provided employees protection from being discriminated by means of race, religion, sex, and national origin. Congress defined religion in 1972 as follows:

“The term ‘religion’ includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”

While this seems fairly straightforward, Trump’s new proposal seeks to provide so-called “clarity” for employers by adding more to the already fairly full-coverage definition.

“OFCCP [Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs] proposes defining Religion to provide that the term is not limited to religious belief but also includes all aspects of religious observance and practice. […] Building on the proposed definition of Religion, OFCCP proposes to define Particular religion to clarify that the religious exemption allows religious contractors not only to prefer in employment individuals who share their religion, but also to condition employment on acceptance of or adherence to religious tenets as understood by the employing contractor.”

This is where things get blatantly discriminatory, and where the majority of the backlash has stemmed from. This proposal leaves a lot of room for federal contractors to decide who they would like to hire and who they can exclude, all under the pretense of religion. For instance, a devout Catholic employer could choose not to hire an unmarried pregnant woman, because their religion prevents premarital sex. Another employer whose religion prevents LGBTQ+ relations could prevent a gay man from working. The result of this proposal isn’t “clarity,” but rather, another battle in the Trump administration’s seemingly endless crusade against LGBTQ+ rights.

The proposal has drawn criticism from countless critics. Ian Thompson, the senior legislative counsel for the ACLU, stated that the Trump administration is “shamefully working to license taxpayer-funded discrimination in the name of religion.” The Human Rights Campaign described the proposal as a “gut to LGBT protections.” Despite this backlash, when asked by reporters if he was okay with the discrimination the proposal would allow, President Trump had a simple answer: “Some of my biggest supporters are of that community [LGBTQ+ community], and I talk to them a lot about it.”

Perhaps he should have talked to these supporters a bit more before making such a divisive proposal.