By Alissa Wilkinson / Vox
This is an abbreviated version of the article. The full story is available on the Vox website.
On Thursday — the National Day of Prayer — President Donald Trump made a move intended to satisfy his repeated promises to conservative Christians from the campaign trail. Flanked by members of the clergy in the Rose Garden, Trump signed the highly anticipated Executive Order on Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.
The order proclaims that the executive branch will “vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom” and proposes strengthening of protections for companies and organizations that claim a conscience-based exemption to paying for contraceptive care.
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Following the order’s signing, the centrist Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty executive director Amanda Tyler released a statement accusing the order of being “largely a symbolic act, voicing concern for religious liberty but offering nothing to advance it. Worse, it is further evidence that President Trump wants churches to be vehicles for political campaigns.”
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The promise to “totally destroy” the amendment seems to have been introduced on June 22, 2016, when as a candidate Trump met with hundreds of evangelical leaders in a closed-door meeting in New York City. During that meeting, Trump made two promises to woo evangelicals: installing conservative justices in the Supreme Court and abolishing the Johnson Amendment, because religious leaders “have the right to speak.”
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