Last Updated on October 20, 2022
Joe Biden’s State Department spent more than $20,000 on promoting drag shows in Ecuador. Promoting the performances was part of the department’s diversity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
The department awarded a $20,600 grant. to Centro Ecuatoriano Norteamerico (CEN), a non-profit in Ecuador that has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the U.S. government for years, according to a report from Fox News. The most recent grant, which was awarded last month, was given with the explicit purpose of promoting and holding drag performances.
CEN will use the grant to produce three workshops, 12 drag shows and a short documentary as part of the program, which will run from September 30 of this year through August 2023.
The grant falls under the State Department’s public diplomacy program, which aims to “support the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advance national interests, and enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics and by expanding and strengthening the relationship between the people and government of the United States and citizens of the rest of the world,” Fox News reported.
Since 2015, CEN has received grants from the U.S. Department of State every year. $234,000 was the maximum figure granted to put on drag shows in Ecuador, which was awarded in 2015. Some other CEN projects funded by the U.S. taxpayer include laptops, Wi-Fi routers, and the purchase of “swag items,” according to a report from the Daily Caller.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in the Central American country since 2019, after the nation’s highest court overturned a previous measure that banned it.
