Friend of the blog Hadar Susskind at Bend the Arc sends us this action alert:

The Department of Health and Human Services has opened up public comments to their proposed rule change that will extend civil rights protections to ban discrimination based on gender identity in health programs and activities. They need to hear from us.
The Department is specifically asking whether they should prohibit sexual orientation-based discrimination in the ban, and whether there needs to be a religious exemption. If we, as the American Jewish community, flood them with comments on these critical issues in the next two weeks we can show that protecting religious liberty does not mean allowing for this kind of discrimination in health care.
Here’s how you can help right now:
We’ve drafted a message that you can submit to the Department below — copy and paste the text, elaborate on the message if you have personal connections to the issue (e.g. if you or members of your family are LGBTQ; if you’re a health care professional; if you’re an expert on religious liberty), and submit it to the Department’s website:
As a Jewish American and as a supporter of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, I am writing in support of the Department of Health and Human Services Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities. I applaud the Department for establishing that the prohibition on sex discrimination in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act includes discrimination based on gender identity. Additionally I urge the Department to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the final rule. Further, I urge the department to refrain from including a religious exemption in the final rule–to include such an exemption is not only unnecessary, but could do significant harm to LGBTQ Americans and their families.
The Department of Health and Human Services needs our support and they need our feedback immediately — comments can be submitted until November 9th.