Apparently, even children learning about agriculture aren’t safe from the Trump-Pence administration’s pandering to the Religious Right and their agenda to use religion as the means to roll back social progress, especially for LGBTQ people.

An exclusive report from the Des Moines Register exposes how officials in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) helped to scuttle a more inclusive LGBTQ policy proposed by 4-H, the international organization known for encouraging children’s interest in farming.

As part of a broader, long-term initiative to diversify the federally subsidized organization, 4-H leadership earlier this year drafted new guidance intended to ensure that LGBTQ children feel welcome and protected in the organization. But once several state 4-H chapters posted the proposed guidance on their websites to seek public comment, conservative Christian groups began to protest. They were particularly up in arms about transgender 4-H members being treated in accordance with their gender identity.

One conservative Christian group in Iowa called The Family Leader labeled the guidance “radical” and resorted to ugly fear-mongering with a representative claiming it would encourage pedophilia. The Religious Right legal firm Liberty Counsel wrote to Iowa State University, which oversees Iowa’s 4-H program,  and threatened “additional action” if the policy wasn’t removed.

According to the Register’s report, days after the 4-H guidance was published online, a chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue requested that it be rescinded, and a communications manager for the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture – the federal department that administers 4-H – emailed at least two state 4-H offices telling them to remove the LGBTQ guidance from the web.

“The subsequent decision to take down the policy set off a firestorm this spring that engulfed 4-H programs in at least eight states – including Iowa, Idaho, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and New York,” the Register reported. It also led to the firing of Iowa’s 4-H director, a strong advocate of the LGBTQ policy.

The flap is reminiscent of the attacks youth organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts faced from religious conservatives in recent years as they became more inclusive to LGBTQ youth.

And it should come as no surprise that officials in the Trump-Pence administration are allowing a small sect of fundamentalist Christians to influence policy in an attempt to redefine religious freedom as a means to discriminate against others, especially LGBTQ people.

Just in the last month, the Department of Justice alerted the U.S. Supreme Court that it is reversing position and now believes federal law barring workplace discrimination does not protect a transgender employee who was fired by a Michigan funeral. Days earlier, reports surfaced that the administration is planning to roll back federal protections for transgender people and narrowly define gender. The move makes it clearer than ever that the administration is willing to disregard medical professionals and the law in order to push its own dogma.

These are just administration’s latest attempts to weaponize religious freedom; AU has compiled this timeline to track all of the attacks the administration has launched against church-state separation.

In the face of these attacks, AU remains committed to ensuring that religious freedom is a shield that protects people and not a sword wielded to harm others. Join us!