03.08.2012 09:04 AM

Her Majesty and the gay-hating, women-hating, equality-hating REAL Women of Canada

Quote:

I wrote about them nearly two decades ago, in Web of Hate.  Here are some of the things you should know about them:

  • One of their directors was Rita Ann Hartmann, who led the Ottawa-based Northern Foundation.  Hartmann’s husband Paul was a Ku Klux Klan and Western Guard leader; two of their sons were active in the neo-Nazi Heritage Front in the Ottawa area.
  • Hartmann maintained connections with neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups across North America, such as the Confederate Hammerskins, while simultaneously acting as a legal advisor to REAL Women of Canada.  At one early REAL Women conference in Ottawa, Hartmann gave an anti-abortion speech.
  • Later on, Wolgang Droege, the founder and leader of the Heritage Front, told me:  “The Northern Foundation was the start of it all for the Heritage Front.  From that point on, things really took off.”

At no point am I aware of REAL Women of Canada having denounced Hartmann or her involvement with neo-Nazi causes. Following the 1994 publication of Web of Hate, instead, REAL Women of Canada continued to promote bigotry and division, albeit less aggressively than their director Hartmann.

In the intervening years, then, REAL Women has consistently shown themselves to be anti-gay, anti-choice and anti-equality.  There is plenty of evidence, for those who have the stomach for it.  (Those who wish to provide cited examples in comments are encouraged to do so.)

I want to get a letter-writing campaign going, today – fittingly, on International Women’s Day – to Her Majesty and Rideau Hall about this outrage.

You can write to Her Majesty here, with the style and structure you should adopt.

You can write to Rideau Hall here.

This is important, on this day of all days.  Please do this.

32 Comments

  1. Anne Peterson says:

    I will certainly do that!

  2. pomojen says:

    Done and Done. Perfect day for it indeed. I intend to forward this suggestion to everyone I know who can operate a pen.

  3. pomojen says:

    Since you asked for stomach turning evidence about what REAL women stand for…*puke*…

    Re: Their opposition to the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg:

    “Patrons of this museum are the feminist Governor-General Michaëlle Jean (See REALity, May June 2007, “Our Wayward Governor-General,” page 3) and John Harvard, Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba. In the latter’s former life, he was an outspoken left-wing Liberal MP from Winnipeg who traded his seat to allow the former homosexual Winnipeg Mayor, Glen Murray, to run in the June 2004 federal election (Mr. Murray was defeated) in return for his appointment in May 2004 as Lieutenant-Governor.

    Further, to ensure that liberal values would prevail, the museum organizers identified, in addition to ethno-cultural and Jewish representatives, so-called “human rights experts”, including representatives of homosexual and feminist interests, who were to sit on the museum’s National Advisory Council…”

    And furthermore….

    “The selfless dedication of those protecting the lives of the unborn child, year after year, or those defending the family and traditional marriage, or struggling to protect the rights of the aged and ill against euthanasia must not be dismissed as “bigots” and “extremists,” unworthy of “noble” liberal ideals. “

  4. Craig Burley says:

    Done. I hate Illinois Nazis.

  5. maggie says:

    Trevor Harrison documents in his book PASSONITY INTENSITY, that Mr Harper was a member of the ultra right wing NORTHERN FOUNDATION in 1989 and its links with the christian fundamentalist group REAL WOMEN

  6. The Other Jim says:

    “An article on the group’s homepage also dismisses bullying as a justified reaction on the part of youth frustrated by the “special treatment” granted to queer or non-Christian youth in schools.”

    This is so bizarre. How do they explain the violence and bullying that queer youth faced for the decades (centuries?) before our society moved towards tolerance for homosexuality? Are they seriously trying to argue that some knuckle-dragger who beats up gay youth is really motivated the broader political argument and not just that he “hates f**s”? Give me a break!

  7. Tdotlib says:

    Done and done. This can’t stand.

  8. Dr.Dawg says:

    Letter to the Queen (a first!) and an email to the GG, sent.

  9. G. Babbitt says:

    The inclusion of REAL women is disgusting, but take a look at the list of cooridnating organizations. There are of course many worthy and great organizations, but the list has some strange inclusions and more importantly sad exclusions. Under the limited number of multi-cultural groups there is an organization solely devoted to protecting the rights of Christians in Pakistan and another Christian organization, whose link seems to indicate it is some church with no information or evidence of community involvement. Under justice there are a number of “victim” advocacy groups and not a single equality seeking group. The Harperites are using the monarchy as stick to bat those who don’t share their ideology.

  10. barb says:

    Why doesn’t anyone ever mention that Stephen Harper was a founding member of the Northern Foundation. I’m not sure if it is because his involvement can’t be proven, people are afraid to say it, or that he was never involved and this is an urban myth so to speak..

    • Warren says:

      HE WASN’T. Jesus. But if you have documentary proof, let’s see it.

      • Alison S says:

        Emily Dee discusses the Harper/Northern Foundation link in her blog, Aberhart and Harper on Crusade, complete with footnotes.

        • JohnnyP says:

          “… the Northern Foundation was the creation of a number of generally extreme right-wing conservatives, including Anne Hartmann (a director of REAL Women), Geoffrey Wasteneys (A long-standing member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), George Potter (also a member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), author Peter Brimelow, Link Byfield (son of Ted Byfield and himself publisher/president of Alberta Report), and Stephen Harper.” (Of Passionate Intensity, p. 121)

          Harper would later say that he was kicked out of the Northern Foundation because he wasn’t right-wing enough. (Hard-Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, p.430)

  11. GPAlta says:

    I will send the letters today, and thank you for bringing this to the public’s attention.
    I think the bigger issue is how they got on the list, and what it says about Harper. This government has been systematically de-funding women’s groups since 2006, and they have obstructed women’s health care around the world. The voter suppression issue may actually be less of a story than the orchestrated female repression they have been carrying out from the beginning with relative impunity.
    http://www.womensequality.ca/Images%20PDFs%202011/2011_April_25_defunded_organizations.pdf

    • MCBellecourt says:

      I think that both issues are equally serious because in light of defunding meaningful organizations, when elections are stolen, we are robbed of the democratic right to say “no” to this kind of attack against a full half of the population.

      No vote? No say. When we cannot trust our electoral system, we have nothing.

  12. David Imrie says:

    Done!

  13. Michael says:

    These values are the very same that Harper’s church also promotes. Alliance Church believes that women belong in the kitchen, homosexuals are hellbound and the earth is 6000 yrs old. How this man ever became PM of Canada is just mind boggling to me.

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