The Trump Administration’s war on LGBTQ is seeking new lows. Now they’re going after babies. The State Department tried to stop a gay couple’s child from entering the US, denying his citizenship and refusing him a passport. They lost in court, but now they’re appealing.

They’re doing so without legal basis and in direct contradiction to established legal precedent, once again displaying a cruel hostility toward LGBTQ people. Why? You can skip to the end for analysis, but first:

This is what happened —

In 2016 while they were living in Canada, married gay couple Andrew and Elad Dvash-Banks had two children via a surrogate and an anonymous egg donor. Elad is Israeli, while Andrew holds both American and Canadian passports. Andrew’s sperm produced Aidan, Elad’s Ethan. As is usual in surrogacy situations, both parents are named on both of the boys’ birth certificates.

This is one just more example of the Trump Administration’s naked homophobia. Of their blatant disregard for equality and the rule of law. Of their resistance to same-sex marriage despite its equality under the law.

A year later, the family tried to move to the US, but the State Department demanded a DNA test to prove the children’s paternity. When the results came in, they denied Ethan a passport, saying he is not a U.S. citizen because his biological father isn’t American.

The couple sued and won—

With the help of Immigration Equality, a leading LGBTQ immigrant rights organization, Andrew and Elad took their case to federal court in California, where District Judge John F. Walter ruled in their favor:

The Court concludes that, under controlling Ninth Circuit authority, Section 301 does not require a person born during their parents’ marriage to demonstrate a biological relationship with both of their married parents …

Issuing his decision last February, Walter called the State Department’s arguments a “strained interpretation” of immigration law, noting that but for the gender of the parents, the facts in this case were “indistinguishable from the facts” in other cases in the Circuit in which citizenship is “settled law.”

The judge was referring to the 2005 9th Circuit decision Solis Espinoza v. Gonzalez, which holds that legal parenthood, not a genetic or biological relationship, is the sole basis for a child’s citizenship.

The couple celebrated their win, packed up the family, and moved to California.

Last Monday, the Administration appealed —

They’re seemingly intent on stripping little Ethan of his citizenship, in a move that appears to serve no rational, legitimate, or substantial government interest. The administration’s only interest seems to be in discriminating against him because his two fathers, both listed on his birth certificate, are gay and not straight.

If he’d been born through surrogacy to a mixed-sex couple, even if he had no biological relationship to either parent, he’d have his passport and nobody would be questioning his status.

He still holds the passport now, because the State Department issued him one after the February District Court order, but nobody is sure what would happen if his parents tried to cross a border with him.

Aaron C. Morris, Immigration Equality executive director protested the appeal in a statement:

Once again, the State Department is refusing to recognize Andrew and Elad’s rights as a married couple. The government’s decision to try to strip Ethan of his citizenship is unconstitutional, discriminatory, and morally reprehensible.

The two dads put it more plainly:

We’re outraged that the State Department is so intent on harming our family and the LGBTQ community.

Why is the Trump Administration intent on harming LGBTQ people?

Is it fear? Does the Dvash-Banks family represent some sort of existential security threat? If so, the danger is ephemeral at best.

Surrogacy and in vitro fertilization (IVF) are very expensive, with estimates ranging from $90,000 to $130,000 for surrogacy fees alone. IVF runs at least another $18,000 in ideal circumstances, sometimes much more.

So, no tide of toddlers born to wealthy, gay, bi-national men or women threatens to wash over our shores and unleash havoc. No pamper-clad terrorists threaten the safety and tranquility of middle America.

The State Department knows that. They don’t even try to deny citizenship to babies in Ethan’s circumstances who have straight parents.

This is one just more example of the Trump Administration’s naked homophobia. Of their blatant disregard for equality and the rule of law. Of their resistance to same-sex marriage despite its equality under the law.

Brutal hostility —

As Michelangelo Signorile noted on Thursday, writing in USA Today, “Brutal hostility is Trump’s real record” on LGBTQ issues, even though he and his supporters often try dissimulating. They usually avoid directly referring to discriminating against LGBTQ people, instead using code words like “religious liberty” and “freedom of conscience.”

Trump, Pence and others in the GOP speak in inexplicit ways to play to the evangelical base, while keeping the anti-LGBTQ agenda below the radar for anyone who would be turned off by blatant bigotry. But when you’re the target, you get it. Many of us in the LGBTQ community understand their code and why their intent must be made clear.

Trump’s evangelical base is the real reason why the Administration keeps attacking LGBTQ people. Just as we “get it” when we’re the target, evangelicals know exactly who the targets are when Trump and company push “religious liberty.”

Trump must have their votes to win in 2020, and he’s giving them exactly what they’re asking for.

Last week, Trump’s people targeted babies with gay dads.

The week before that, they finalized rules allowing health care workers to deny services to transgender people, gay men, and lesbians.

A couple weeks before that, it was stopping transgender people from serving in the military.

Equal rights for LGBTQ people are being snatched back at a frightening clip, even though huge majorities of Americans and even large pluralities of conservative Americans believe that LGBTQ people should be treated equally under the law.

It’s time to end this —

It’s time to take our country back. It’s time for a paradigm shift in thinking about equality. If tearing families apart isn’t the opposite of Christian and American values, then nothing is.

I’m with Andrew and Elad when they say,

“The fight is not over, and we will not rest until our family is treated fairly and equally. Nothing can tear us apart. The four of us are unbreakable.”