Anti-gay group will represent U.S. at key United Nations meetings

The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) will represent the U.S. State Department at the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women. The lobbying group’s longtime leader Austin Ruse has said he supports the criminalization of homosexuality, which he calls harmful to public health and morals.

The US has sent the group to key United Nations meetings – fueling fears over rolling back gay rights.

C-FAM has been listed as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by nonprofit civil rights group the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for at least five years, said Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project.

“The way you get on our anti-gay hate list is basically if you demonize the gay population,” Beirich told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “That’s how they ended up on the list.

On its website, C-FAM says its mission is to defend life and family at international institutions.

Beirich said the inclusion of C-FAM “is taking the State Department in a very ugly direction” and failing to address the violence and discrimination faced by LGBTQ people in some places.

“When you take this anti-gay tone openly, that provides an opening for people to continue those horrible practices,” she said.

via NBC News