The call to protect religious freedom — often code among social conservatives for the ability to discriminate against LGBT people — continued to be a rallying cry at the annual anti-LGBT Values Voter Summit, where attendees declared support for President Trump and his policies ahead of the upcoming congressional mid-term elections.

Speakers over the weekend at the annual confab in D.C. for social conservatives from Vice President Mike Pence on down repeatedly incorporated the term in their speeches, stoking paranoid fears that “religious freedom” is in peril and promising the Trump administration will act to preserve it.

But what do social conservatives envision when they hear from political leaders about religious freedom being in danger? After all, the concept of religious freedom being imperiled could also apply to Trump’s travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, but social conservatives have championed that policy.

Attendees at the Values Voter Summit who spoke to the Washington Blade about religious freedom largely signaled it was in fact a term used to express concern about the growth of LGBT rights and the desire for exemptions from laws that prohibit discrimination against LGBT people.

Kenny Nelson, a 20-year-old attendee from New York, said religious freedom constitutes the ability to exercise conscience “in the free markets,” including the denial of services to LGBT people.

“You have the right to say I don’t want to bake a wedding cake because I don’t support gay marriage,” Nelson said. “That’s really all religious freedom is to me, being free to express religion without persecution.” Read more via Washington Blade