For many months, various groups have been pressing the President to issue an executive order banning LGBT job discrimination by federal contractors, and there is a credible rumor that such an executive order has already been drafted.

The pressure on the President to sign an LGBT executive order concerning federal contractors only increased after the Senate adopted the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (to prohibit LGBT job discrimination by all employers) and then the Speaker of the House said he would not allow House consideration of the Senate ENDA bill. An executive order is a way the President can act even if Congress will not-and the President has stressed that he intends to use executive action to further his goals when Congress declines to act.

There is no way to know for certain that the President intends to issue an LGBT executive order governing federal contractors. On the one hand, the President has maintained until now the federal status quo with regard to religious hiring (including, so far, not changing a Bush executive order that opened up federal contracting to religious organizations that hire on a religious basis); on the other hand, the administration has taken multiple steps to expand LGBT rights.

How consequential would such an executive order be for institutional religious freedom? An LGBT employment executive order would be limited to federal contracts; there is a long line of executive orders, dating back to President FDR, dealing with discrimination by federal contractors, but employment rules for federal grants have been adopted, instead, by Congress. Federal contracts are used in the main for the federal government to obtain military items, IT services, and the like.

However, increasingly contracts as well as grants are used by USAID to fund overseas relief and development services, contracts are used to fund social services in the Bureau of Prisons, and faith-based and other organizations are paid by contract to provide consulting, research, and technical assistance.

Even more important: whenever the federal government decides to act, it should do so in a way that protects religious freedom, including the religious freedom of faith-based service organizations.

Last week, IRFA and some three dozen faith-based organizations and religious leaders signed a letter to the President asking that, if he should decide to issue an LGBT job discrimination executive order covering federal contracts, he include robust institutional religious freedom protections. The letter does not recommend such an executive order-rather it advocates for strong religious freedom protections. It would be very significant if the President would specifically affirm religious freedom rights in the context of expanding LGBT rights.

Letter to President re fed contracts.