Trump Administration Orders 4-H Programs To Delete 'Welcoming' Message To LGBTs

Back in April of this year, the international youth organization 4-H (Head, Heart, Hands, Health) introduced new guidance to help LGBTQ members feel welcome in an effort to expand and modernize the federally authorized group.

The national guidance was posted on several states' websites but quickly drew fire from evangelical and conservative groups.

More from The Des Moines Register:

Within days of the LGBT guidance's publication, Heidi Green, then-chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, requested that it be rescinded, Sonny Ramaswamy, then-director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the federal department that administers 4-H, told the Register.

Afterward, a NIFA communications manager sent an "urgent" email to at least two states — Iowa and New York — urging the 4-H organizations there to remove the LGBT guidance from their websites, the Register found.

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.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley told the Des Moines Register that the U.S. Department of Agriculture should not have pressured 4-H to rescind the policy welcoming LGBTQ members into the international youth organization.

“Common sense tells me that that for 100 years … 4-H has been operating as a very competent organization and I don’t know of any federal interference in the past,” he said. “So why would you have it in this particular case?”

4-H is a congressionally authorized youth program that is subsidized through a combination of federal, state and local funds.

In many small rural communities where music, drama and arts funding has been slashed, 4-H is one of the few organizations LGBTs have other than sports to find a place to belong.