News
Tony Perkins: More action from Trump soon on ‘religious freedom’
Anti-LGBT leader says follow-up to executive order coming next week

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins says more action on “religious freedom” is coming next week. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
In the aftermath of a religious freedom executive order signed by President Trump that had no explicit reference to LGBT issues, the head of a top anti-LGBT group close to the White House said more action is coming next week on the issue — code for social conservatives to mean anti-LGBT discrimination.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, made the remarks last night on “Washington Watch” the weekly radio broadcast produced by the organization.
“By the way, stand by next week, you’re going to see some follow-up to the president’s executive order on religious liberty,” Perkins said. “The next phase of that is going to be coming about and I think it is going to be very instructive. We are going to see government agencies basically put on notice that they have to respect religious freedom. And that is not just the ability to believe, it is the free exercise of religion.”
It’s unclear exactly what Perkins was referencing. Earlier this year, a draft executive order on “religious freedom” that would have enabled sweeping anti-LGBT discrimination circulated among federal agencies and advocacy groups, although Trump never signed the order.
Instead, Trump in May signed a religious freedom executive order that was largely a symbolic statement in favor of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision and against the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law barring churches and religious non-profits from making political endorsements.
The directive made no explicit reference to LGBT issues, although it charged U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions with implementing federal guidance in favor of religious freedom. That language alarmed some LGBT groups like the Human Rights Campaign, who said it opened the door for discrimination.
At a conference earlier this month, for the anti-LGBT Alliance Defending Freedom, Sessions said guidance for “religious freedom” is on the way.
Although he didn’t offer details, the attorney general said it would “help agencies follow the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” That law, which prohibits the government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion, was passed in 1993 on a bipartisan basis, but has been cited as legal basis for allowing anti-LGBT discrimination.
“Congress enacted RFRA so that, if the federal government imposes a burden on somebody’s religious practice, it had better have a compelling reason,” Sessions said. “That is a demanding standard, and it’s the law of the land. We will follow it just as faithfully as we follow every other federal law. If we’re going to ensure that religious liberty is adequately protected and our country remains free, then we must ensure that RFRA is followed.”
Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, distributed the audio of Perkins predicting action on “religious freedom” and warned Trump against following through with discrimination.
“If President Trump issues another executive order based on advice from anti-LGBTQ extremist groups like the Family Research Council, he will be harming countless hardworking Americans and their families,” Ellis said in a statement. “The ‘religious exemptions’ laws that groups like the Family Research Council are successfully pushing fly in the face of real American values and open LGBTQ people and our children up to discrimination.”
Hungary
Hungarian authorities lift Budapest Pride ban
Country’s new government took office last month
Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the annual Budapest Pride march to take place.
“The Budapest Metropolitan Police has approved the 2026 Budapest Pride Parade and also has issued restrictive orders in relation to three counter-demonstrations,” a Budapest Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Politico.
Budapest is Hungary’s capital and largest city.
Hungarian lawmakers last year passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify participants. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
More than 100,000 people defied the ban and participated in last year’s Budapest Pride parade. The event became one of the largest protests against then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government since he took office in 2010.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office last month after his center-right Tisza party ousted Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in elections that took place on April 12. The European Union’s top court, the EU Court of Justice, days after Orbán’s ouster struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law that MPs approved in 2021.
The EU on May 29 announced it will release more than €16 billion ($18.59 billion) in funds to Hungary that it withheld while Orbán was in office.
The Budapest Pride march will take place on June 27.
“We will march freely in fresh air for our rights, for the democratic Hungary,” said Budapest Pride on its Facebook page.
Colombia
Claudia López comes up short in Colombian presidential election
Former Bogotá mayor would have been country’s first lesbian head of government
Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López on Sunday finished fifth in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election.
López, a centrist who ran as an independent, received 225,517 votes. This figure is .95 percent of the total votes cast.
López was the Colombian capital’s mayor from 2020-2023. She was a member of the Colombian Senate from 2014-2018. López, whose wife is outgoing Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano, would have become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she would have won the election.
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute honored López in D.C. in 2024.
“We need to listen to each other again, we need to have a coffee with each other again, we need to touch each other’s skin,” she told the Washington Blade during an interview. She hadn’t yet declared her candidacy, and did not specifically discuss her plans to run.
Runoff to take place June 21
Abrelardo de la Espriella, a far-right lawyer who has praised U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, on Sunday finished first with 43.74 percent of the vote. Senator Iván Cepeda, a member of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s Historic Pact party, came in second with 40.9 percent of the vote.
Neither men received a majority of votes. A runoff between them will take place on June 21.
Ghana
Ghanaian lawmakers approve anti-LGBTQ bill
Measure that would criminalize allyship awaits president’s signature
Ghanaian lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would, among other things, criminalize LGBTQ allyship.
Reuters reported MPs approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, in a voice vote after parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee backed it.
MPs in 2024 approved a similar bill, but it faced legal challenges and then-President Nana Akufo-Addo didn’t sign it. Lawmakers last year reintroduced the measure after President John Dramani Mahama took office.
The bill awaits his signature.
Rightify Ghana, a Ghanaian LGBTQ advocacy group, in a series of social media posts notes MPs passed the bill days before the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty will take place in Accra, the country’s capital.
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