A senior White House official said the order will address enforcement of tax rules for churches and contraception mandates under Obamacare — not exemptions that would allow LGBT discrimination, as many expected.
The Trump administration on Wednesday night said it would issue an executive order the next day to expand religious freedom, fulfilling a promise to social conservatives who coalesced around Donald Trump during the campaign even though he fell short of saintliness himself.
The order will direct the IRS to give the maximum discretion possible when enforcing a 1954 law designed to ban tax-exempt organizations, like churches, from engaging in certain political activity, a senior White House official said on a conference call with reporters.
The official added the order will also provide so-called regulatory relief for religious organizations objected to a mandate under the Affordable Healthcare Act to provide contraception coverage to employees.
Trump is expected to sign the order when a bevy of religious figures visit the White House on Thursday for the National Day of Prayer.
However, the scope of the order — if signed in the condition the official described — would fall short of what many religious conservatives had hoped for.
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