A divided Senate passed a resolution Monday supporting the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
“As the leader of the free world, we should be setting an example rather than backing off equality for all people,” said Sen. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood.
Republicans said they oppose discrimination against women but don’t want to sign on to the convention because that could open up American domestic policy to outside scrutiny. Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Larimer County, said Americans have not elected U.N. officials to represent them.
President Jimmy Carter signed the convention in 1980, but the U.S. Senate has not ratified it.
Republicans have said the convention supports abortion and does nothing to stop the persecution of women in countries that already have signed onto it. Democrats, meanwhile, say the United States is among only a few countries that have not signed onto the convention and will lose status as a moral leader in the world if it doesn’t.
On a party-line vote, the Senate passed the resolution 19-15, with one Democrat absent.
The resolution, which already passed the House, will be sent to Congress and to the president urging their support of the convention.
