SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
"Fundamentalist notions about how women and girls should behave should never be the basis of advising or negotiating U.S. foreign policy." (Photo: United Nations/flickr/cc)
Trump Sends Hate Group to Represent US at UN Women's Rights Conference
"The members of the president's delegation to the United Nations' annual summit on women are opposed to the U.N. as a whole and the fundamental rights of women in particular"
Mar 17, 2017
Since President Donald Trump's November election, there has been a wave of hate incidents nationwide--and now he's chosen a leader from one group that has itself espoused violence to represent the U.S. on the international stage.
Earlier this week, the State Department announced that representatives from infamous anti-LGBTQ hate group the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) and from the far-right Heritage Foundation will represent the U.S. at a United Nations conference on women's rights later this month:
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) noted on Twitter: "Trump is sending hate groups to a U.N. conference on women's rights."
Slate's Christina Cauterucci summarized the groups' views, which not only include denigrating rights for women and LGBTQ people, but also antipathy toward the U.N. itself:
One delegate, Lisa Correnti, is an executive vice president at the Center for Family & Human Rights (C-FAM), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group since 2014. C-FAM was explicitly formed in the '90s to push back against the rights of women in U.N. resolutions and policies. One of C-FAM's core missions is to advance laws that restrict the rights and protections of LGBTQ people; its president recently called contraception and gay rights "devilish gospel." The organization signed on in favor of Russia's anti-gay laws, which have led to arrests, prosecution, and physical assaults from government agents for gay Russians.
The Heritage Foundation will send to the CSW Grace Melton, the organization's associate for U.N. social issues and the author behind such riveting texts as "In Bed with Radical Feminists: The U.N.'s Misguided Women's Agenda." Her employer is one of the most high-profile anti-LGBTQ organizations in the country. The foundation likes to argue that laws preventing any kind of discrimination--in schools, housing, and employment, for instance--against LGBTQ people grant them "special privilege" and are contrary to the values of the United States. Heritage takes a special interest in advocating against protections for transgender people and insurance coverage for contraception. In advocating for the repeal of the Violence Against Women Act, the Heritage Foundation has called grants that fund the prevention of and response to violence against women "a misuse of federal resources and a distraction from concerns that truly are the province of federal government," claiming that the act is "watering down services" by including funds for incarcerated survivors of abuse. When Trump proposed cutting all 25 federal grant programs managed by the Office on Violence Against Women, it was under the advice of the Heritage Foundation.
"Fundamentalist notions about how women and girls should behave should never be the basis of advising or negotiating U.S. foreign policy," said Jessica Stern, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group OutRight International, in a statement.
"We want the State Department to be a beacon of freedom and safety for communities, and this is the opposite of that," Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) Intelligence project, told Reuters.
"It is also a bad sign that two organizations that have tried to delegitimize the United Nations and human rights internationally now sit on the official U.S. delegation," added Stern. "Maybe the violent mentality that got C-FAM labeled a hate group successfully panders to their base, but the U.S. government must ensure protection for the world's most vulnerable people."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Since President Donald Trump's November election, there has been a wave of hate incidents nationwide--and now he's chosen a leader from one group that has itself espoused violence to represent the U.S. on the international stage.
Earlier this week, the State Department announced that representatives from infamous anti-LGBTQ hate group the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) and from the far-right Heritage Foundation will represent the U.S. at a United Nations conference on women's rights later this month:
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) noted on Twitter: "Trump is sending hate groups to a U.N. conference on women's rights."
Slate's Christina Cauterucci summarized the groups' views, which not only include denigrating rights for women and LGBTQ people, but also antipathy toward the U.N. itself:
One delegate, Lisa Correnti, is an executive vice president at the Center for Family & Human Rights (C-FAM), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group since 2014. C-FAM was explicitly formed in the '90s to push back against the rights of women in U.N. resolutions and policies. One of C-FAM's core missions is to advance laws that restrict the rights and protections of LGBTQ people; its president recently called contraception and gay rights "devilish gospel." The organization signed on in favor of Russia's anti-gay laws, which have led to arrests, prosecution, and physical assaults from government agents for gay Russians.
The Heritage Foundation will send to the CSW Grace Melton, the organization's associate for U.N. social issues and the author behind such riveting texts as "In Bed with Radical Feminists: The U.N.'s Misguided Women's Agenda." Her employer is one of the most high-profile anti-LGBTQ organizations in the country. The foundation likes to argue that laws preventing any kind of discrimination--in schools, housing, and employment, for instance--against LGBTQ people grant them "special privilege" and are contrary to the values of the United States. Heritage takes a special interest in advocating against protections for transgender people and insurance coverage for contraception. In advocating for the repeal of the Violence Against Women Act, the Heritage Foundation has called grants that fund the prevention of and response to violence against women "a misuse of federal resources and a distraction from concerns that truly are the province of federal government," claiming that the act is "watering down services" by including funds for incarcerated survivors of abuse. When Trump proposed cutting all 25 federal grant programs managed by the Office on Violence Against Women, it was under the advice of the Heritage Foundation.
"Fundamentalist notions about how women and girls should behave should never be the basis of advising or negotiating U.S. foreign policy," said Jessica Stern, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group OutRight International, in a statement.
"We want the State Department to be a beacon of freedom and safety for communities, and this is the opposite of that," Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) Intelligence project, told Reuters.
"It is also a bad sign that two organizations that have tried to delegitimize the United Nations and human rights internationally now sit on the official U.S. delegation," added Stern. "Maybe the violent mentality that got C-FAM labeled a hate group successfully panders to their base, but the U.S. government must ensure protection for the world's most vulnerable people."
Since President Donald Trump's November election, there has been a wave of hate incidents nationwide--and now he's chosen a leader from one group that has itself espoused violence to represent the U.S. on the international stage.
Earlier this week, the State Department announced that representatives from infamous anti-LGBTQ hate group the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) and from the far-right Heritage Foundation will represent the U.S. at a United Nations conference on women's rights later this month:
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) noted on Twitter: "Trump is sending hate groups to a U.N. conference on women's rights."
Slate's Christina Cauterucci summarized the groups' views, which not only include denigrating rights for women and LGBTQ people, but also antipathy toward the U.N. itself:
One delegate, Lisa Correnti, is an executive vice president at the Center for Family & Human Rights (C-FAM), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group since 2014. C-FAM was explicitly formed in the '90s to push back against the rights of women in U.N. resolutions and policies. One of C-FAM's core missions is to advance laws that restrict the rights and protections of LGBTQ people; its president recently called contraception and gay rights "devilish gospel." The organization signed on in favor of Russia's anti-gay laws, which have led to arrests, prosecution, and physical assaults from government agents for gay Russians.
The Heritage Foundation will send to the CSW Grace Melton, the organization's associate for U.N. social issues and the author behind such riveting texts as "In Bed with Radical Feminists: The U.N.'s Misguided Women's Agenda." Her employer is one of the most high-profile anti-LGBTQ organizations in the country. The foundation likes to argue that laws preventing any kind of discrimination--in schools, housing, and employment, for instance--against LGBTQ people grant them "special privilege" and are contrary to the values of the United States. Heritage takes a special interest in advocating against protections for transgender people and insurance coverage for contraception. In advocating for the repeal of the Violence Against Women Act, the Heritage Foundation has called grants that fund the prevention of and response to violence against women "a misuse of federal resources and a distraction from concerns that truly are the province of federal government," claiming that the act is "watering down services" by including funds for incarcerated survivors of abuse. When Trump proposed cutting all 25 federal grant programs managed by the Office on Violence Against Women, it was under the advice of the Heritage Foundation.
"Fundamentalist notions about how women and girls should behave should never be the basis of advising or negotiating U.S. foreign policy," said Jessica Stern, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group OutRight International, in a statement.
"We want the State Department to be a beacon of freedom and safety for communities, and this is the opposite of that," Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) Intelligence project, told Reuters.
"It is also a bad sign that two organizations that have tried to delegitimize the United Nations and human rights internationally now sit on the official U.S. delegation," added Stern. "Maybe the violent mentality that got C-FAM labeled a hate group successfully panders to their base, but the U.S. government must ensure protection for the world's most vulnerable people."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.