7 Trump Accomplishments That Evangelicals Like
2. Enacting an executive order on 'religious liberty'
On the National Day of Prayer in May, Trump gathered a number of the nation's leading evangelical and Christian leaders at the White House Rose Garden and signed an executive order on free speech and religious liberty.
Among other things, the order instructed the Department of Treasury and the IRS not to take adverse action against churches and 501(c)(3) nonprofits that speak out about moral and political issues in accordance with their faith.
The move was Trump's attempt at taking the teeth out of the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law that bans tax-exempt nonprofits from engaging in political campaigning. It was a law that Trump had vowed to abolish during the campaign.
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The executive order also called on the Department of Justice to issue guidance to federal agencies about how they can best protect religious liberty as it applies under federal law. The order also called on the Department of Health and Human Services to consider providing religious exemptions to an Obamacare contraception mandate that religious organizations felt violated their religious convictions.
"I think if you look at this order, it has the proposition that religious freedom will be protected and promoted. That is a significant change in not only the past two terms, frankly the last several presidents," Liberty Counsel's attorney Mat Staver told The Christian Post at the time. "[A] particular provision is directed by the president across the board in all the federal agencies and departments to protect and promote religious freedom in a rigorous manner. That is the CEO telling the department heads what the policy is for the company and now it's your task to implement it."
