Thread by @LambdaLegal

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Religious freedom must not include freedom to discriminate, particularly not with taxpayers' dollars. We are deeply concerned by today's announcements.
buzzfeednews.com/article/domini…

White House unveiled 8 regulations this AM to "remove regulatory burdens", stating faith-based organizations will not be discriminated against based on their religious “exercise or belief.”

As #LGBTQ people, we know a dog whistle when we hear it.
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federalregister.gov/public-inspect…

ALSO: White House released a memo instructing federal agencies to detail how they will prevent discrimination against faith-based orgs in distributing federal grants.

Our lawyers are reviewing the regulations. Stay tuned for more. #LicenseToDiscriminate
washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/…

🧐 Here's a legal TL;DR of these #ReligiousFreedomDay regulation rollouts:

The Trump-Pence administration is attacking prior regulations that ACCOMMODATED religious entities eager to take lucrative federal contracts, grants and awards to provide services to the public.

These prior regulations allowed these entities to get in on the game of getting taxpayer $$$ if they abided by certain basic requirements.

Basic requirements like, you know, promising not to discriminate. 👀

Faith-based entities receiving taxpayer dollars were ALSO required to provide notices to their beneficiaries of their right to receive services elsewhere.

New regs: Eliminate notice reqs & create notices to beneficiaries of faith-based entities’ own "religious rights" instead.

Translation: These claimed "religious rights" (ha, a pun!) often include ~coincidentally~ claiming a right to discriminate against members of the public who would seek to use these services.

Here's the thing: these prior regulations were an ATTEMPT to accommodate religious entities eager for taxpayer $$$.

An effort to bless a flow of those dollars to religious orgs by creating a few nondiscrim & other protections for beneficiaries is now, apparently, discrimination.