In January of 2018, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) issued a proposed federal regulation that would allow widespread discrimination in health care delivery in the name of religious liberty. The rule would allow health care providers to refuse to treat someone if their refusal is based on a religious reason. NCLR submitted extensive comments opposing the rule, which was nevertheless issued in final form in May of 2019. A number of organizations and state and local governments sued HHS to prevent the rule from going into effect. NCLR filed amicus briefs in the litigation challenging the rule. The rule was struck down in court. The Trump Administration has appealed the orders vacating the rule.

NCLR partners with the NCAA in the Common Ground Initiative to increase dialogue at conservative religious colleges about how LGBTQ inclusion and respect for religion can operate together to create safer, healthier, and more inclusive environments for student athletes—and by extension for all students.

NCLR, along with other national LGBTQ organizations, is part of a State Policy Working Group that addresses proposed state legislation affecting LGBTQ people across the country. The group works to support local advocates in advancing bills to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, healthcare, and other areas, and to allow transgender and nonbinary people to obtain gender marker changes on identity documents.

The group also works to stop the dozens of hostile anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures every year. Among the proposed laws that have been successfully defeated are bills that would permit discrimination against same-sex couples who marry, create broad religious exemptions to existing civil rights protections, allow religiously-affiliated child welfare agencies to refuse to place children with same-sex couples, prohibit transgender people from using restrooms and other facilities based on their gender identity, and deprive transgender youth of access to gender-affirming medical care and participation in school sports based on their gender identity.