The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has mounted a petition campaign asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions for “robust” religious exemptions for opponents of LGBT rights.

Social conservatives disappointed that an executive order signed earlier this month by President Donald Trump does not limit LGBT rights as expected are turning to Sessions for relief. Language in the order directs Sessions – who scored a zero in the Senate on a survey of LGBT support – to “issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law.”

NOM President Brian Brown is demanding that Sessions “draft comprehensive, robust rules that will fully protect the right of people of faith to subscribe to traditional moral principles without risk of governmental retribution.”

A leaked draft of the order reportedly sought to protect persons and organizations that oppose marriage equality and abortion rights and believe that a person's sex is determined at or before birth. The order signed by Trump directs the IRS to exercise “maximum enforcement discretion” in enforcing the Johnson Amendment, which limits tax-exempt groups from endorsing or actively opposing candidates for political office and allows private employers who object on religious grounds to contraception to deny reproductive health care to their employees.

Writing at Right Wing Watch, Peter Montgomery noted: “Perhaps Trump punted to Sessions as a way of deflecting criticism from those who still want to believe Trump is committed to protecting the rights and interests of LGBTQ Americans. If the administration’s vast and vastly harmful expansion of the global gag rule is an indication of what we can expect from Sessions, that illusion will become much harder to sustain.”