President Donald Trump recognized the National Day of Prayer while gathered in the White House Rose Garden—a first for the event that was held this year on Thursday, May 4th. After finishing his message, President Trump then moved to a desk set up in the Rose Garden, where he signed the two-fold executive order.
“Today my administration is leading by example as we take historic steps to protect religious liberty in the United States of America,” the president, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and his religious advisors. The long-awaited order effectively weakens the enforcement of an IRS rule barring churches and tax-exempt groups from being involved with politics (this addresses the Johnson Amendment).
“We are giving churches their voices back,” Trump told those gathered in the White House Rose Garden. “No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors.”
“Faith is deeply embedded into the history of our country, the spirit of our founding and the soul of our nation,” he said. “We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced anymore.”
The order also declares that it’s a policy of the executive branch to protect and promote religious liberty. In addition, it promises regulatory relief to religious groups that have a moral objection to the contraception mandate in Obamacare.
“Freedom is not a gift from government; freedom is a gift from God,” Trump noted, adding that no American should be “forced to choose between the dictates of the federal government and the tenets of their faith.”
Faith leaders are revealing some mixed reactions to President Donald Trump’s new Religious Liberty Executive order. Some say it falls short of addressing several key issues that were included in a draft of the order that circulated over the winter. Ryan Anderson from the Heritage Foundation tweeted that the current version of the executive order is “woefully inadequate.”
Others like Family Research Council President Tony Perkins praised the order and was quick to defend it in an interview with CBN News. “I think some would have liked to have seen everything being explicit in the executive order in terms of the attacks on religious freedom. But quite frankly, I’m not sure there’s enough paper in Washington, D.C. to contain all of the attacks that were launched on religious freedom under the Obama administration,” said Perkins.
Franklin Graham spoke out on Facebook, praising the order for protecting churches and Christian organizations.