![\"Tony](\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.towleroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Tony-Perkins.png?resize=600%2C332\")
<\/p>\nTony Perkins Remains Bullish That Trump Will Issue \u2018Religious Freedom\u2019 Executive Order<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tony Perkins remains bullish that the Trump administration will still target the LGBT community<\/a> with a forthcoming executive order.<\/p>\n The leader of the Family Research Council, designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, spoke with Fox News following Trump\u2019s address today at the National Prayer Breakfast, in which he vowed to lift the Johnson amendment that prevents the endorsement of political candidates by tax-exempt religious organizations. On the subject of the draft executive order on \u201creligious freedom\u201d\u00a0<\/a>that has been circulating, Perkins declared himself \u201coptimistic that this administration is going to address that.\u201d He had previously expressed similar confidence on the matter<\/a>\u00a0even though the administration claims it has no plans to sign it<\/a>.<\/p>\n The EO is entitled \u201c<\/span>Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,\u201d and would allow so-called exemptions from federal law for groups and individuals who maintain religious objections to same-sex<\/a> marriage, trans<\/a> identity, and a raft of other similar issues.<\/p>\n When confronted with the apropos words of Sarah Kate Ellis, the GLAAD president, that this EO \u201cwould be a national license to discriminate, and it would endanger LGBTQ people and their families,\u201d Perkins ignored\u00a0the point entirely.<\/p>\n Referring\u00a0to sexual and gender identity as \u201cdoing anything you want and making everybody embrace it,\u201d he claimed that the free market would provide a failsafe. It is the same sort of argument that justified Jim Crow laws in the South and does not acknowledge that this purported \u201cfree\u201d market itself would be sectioned off from entire segments of the population.<\/p>\n Watch:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The post Tony Perkins Remains Bullish That Trump Will Issue \u2018Religious Freedom\u2019 Executive Order<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n