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
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, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. 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. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —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.