Trump to sign executive order on religious liberty that could threaten LGBT rights

Conservative leaders are expected to visit the White House this Thursday (4 May) for the inking of a religious liberty executive order.

The wording of the order is not yet known, but a source told Politico "the language is very, very strong".

An initial attempt at a religious liberty order was leaked to the press in February – prompting strong reaction from a number of Democrats as well as LGBT rights campaigners.

The legislation leaked in February intended to allow people and businesses to register their religious objections to almost any situation – in a move that campaigners argued would allow people to discriminate against LGBT people and claim religious grounds for doing so.

Since the February leak, Trump's Vice President Mike Pence has been rewriting the draft document – something that itself has caused alarm given a similar law introduced by Pence during his tenure as governor of Indiana – and it is set to be released on National Prayer Day.

The move towards granting religious conservatives a bill many of them have been pushing for for some time comes following the maintenance of federal funding for Planned Parenthood – which some had pushed to defund as part of a broader push against services that offer abortion.