Category Archives: Constitution

Openly gay US ambassador treads touchy path in Dominican Republic

Photo (Courtesy) http://repeatingislands.com/2014/12/16/openly-gay-us-ambassador-treads-touchy-path-in-dominican-republic/

Ezra Fieser

The Christian Science Monitor

December 16, 2014.

On the day he was sworn in as United States ambassador to the Dominican Republic, James Brewster married his partner, Bob Satawake, in a hotel with a view of the White House grounds.

Mr. Brewster and Mr. Satawake arrived in Santo Domingo as the first openly gay couple ever to serve at an ambassadorial level in the Americas. But even before their plane touched down, conservative circles in the Dominican Republic were pointing to them as an example of how US foreign policy is out of touch with local norms.

The conservative archbishop of Santo Domingo, Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez, referred to Brewster using a derogatory slur for homosexuals. The leader of evangelical Christian churches called for protests, and Dominicans filled social media sites with anti-gay comments.

“The words that were used and I think the conversations coming from such a strong sense of hate really were shocking to me,” Brewster told The Christian Science Monitor in his first interview with a foreign news outlet. “My objective after seeing it was to make sure that we took it in context. And we saw the outpouring of support.”

Now, a year after Brewster’s arrival, his ambassadorship is seen as an example for how top US diplomats can manage the State Department’s call to push for stronger rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in sensitive situations. The Obama administration, which has appointed more openly gay ambassadors than all other administrations combined, said last year that the advancement of LGBT rights around the world would be a priority. “No matter where you are, and no matter who you love, we stand with you,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in June 2013.

‘Isn’t it time to stop hating?’ Brewster, a former executive for a US shopping mall developer and a top Chicago-area fundraiser for Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, was nominated as part of a historic class of five openly gay ambassadors.

Others went to Denmark, Australia, Spain, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Austria. Last month, the Senate confirmed Ted Osius as ambassador to Vietnam, making him the first openly gay US diplomat to serve in Asia.

Those ambassadors have incorporated protection of LGBT rights as part of their mission, including the ambassador to Spain, James Costos, who flew the rainbow gay pride flag just below Old Glory to celebrate LGBT Pride month in June.

None, however, has had to navigate the type of backlash Brewster confronted when he arrived in Santo Domingo. Politically influential Catholic bishops, who did not return calls for comment, warned Brewster that his values were not in sync with those of the majority Catholic Caribbean country. “He is going to suffer and will have to leave,” Monsignor Pablo Cedano said.

The Dominican Republic does not have a law that bans homosexual relations, like those on the books in several Caribbean countries. But it is one of few countries in the region to ban same-sex marriage under the Constitution. In 2010, the year that Constitution was enacted, a public opinion survey by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project found that only 18.6 percent of Dominicans supported same-sex marriage. It was among the 10 countries in Latin America with the lowest support for such rights.

To mark LGBT Pride month, Brewster and Satawake released a video in which they responded to their critics. “To those individuals who continue to discriminate against individuals because of who they are as human beings, I have to ask, ‘Isn’t it time to stop hating?’ ” Brewster said.

“The intent was to let them know that we’re much broader than the married gay couple that lives in the ambassador’s residence,” Brewster says. “It was something we wanted to do because if we’re going to continue to promote that anyone who is born anywhere in the world can be proud of who they are, it’s important for us to be out there to talk about that we’re proud of who we are.”

But it also continued the controversy around his presence.

“I don’t think that most people agree with what they said, but people think that the US doesn’t recognize that for us to have a gay ambassador is like an insult,” says Omar Fernandez, a bank employee and Catholic here.

‘In a fishbowl’“Ambassadors often speak on issues of controversy – some matters of policy, others involving things they’ve said or done in country,” Michael Guest, an openly gay ambassador to Romania appointed by George W. Bush in 2001, wrote in an e-mail after Brewster’s video was released. “He’s absolutely right to integrate this issue into comments regarding pride season.”

Brewster and other gay ambassadors have to balance their roles as diplomats with their desire to advocate for LGBT rights, says Dennis Jett, former ambassador to Mozambique and Peru and a professor of international affairs at Penn State University.

“As ambassador, you have to pick and choose the issues you’re going to engage on,” says Mr. Jett. “You’re constantly in the fishbowl.”

For those advocating for gay rights here, however, Brewster “is an important symbol,” says Juan Jimenez Coll, a local gay rights activist. “His presence shows to us that there is support for what we’re trying to do.”

Brewster, for his part, seems to be looking beyond the controversy.

“The great thing about Dominican culture is that they’re a very proud culture that has a strong faith,” says Brewster, who vacationed here for 15 years before becoming ambassador. “For me, any time I look at anyone who has a strong faith, my hope is that their understanding that loving everyone as they would love themselves is going to be the thing that wins.”

Source: http://www.adn.com/article/20141216/openly-gay-us-ambassador-treads-touchy-path-dominican-republic

Jozef Wesolowski, el nuncio pederasta

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Por primera vez en la historia de la Santa Sede, un obispo de tan alto rango fue arrestado por la Gendarmería Vaticana con las acusasiones de pedofilia

25/09/2014 00:11 Cynthia Rodríguez/ Especial

Diversas entrevistas daban la certeza de lo que era un secreto a voces en República Dominicana. A Wesolowski le gustaban los niños y prefería siempre a los más pequeños.

Foto: AP

MILÁN, 25 de septiembre.— Hace un año, un amplio reportaje televisivo de República Dominicana, despejaba las dudas sobre el representante de la Santa Sede en aquel país. Era 2 de septiembre de 2013.

Ahí se veía al entonces nuncio apostólico Jozef Wesolowski, quien apenas el pasado martes fue arrestado por la autoridad vaticana, al pasear por el malecón de Santo Domingo vestido de civil a la caza de menores de edad, a los cuales pudiera ofrecerles dinero a cambio de favores sexuales.

Diversas entrevistas (algunas de ellas anónimas, pero la gran mayoría testimonios bien identificados), daban la certeza de lo que era un secreto a voces desde algunos años atrás en ese país del Caribe. A Wesolowski, el enviado del Vaticano, le gustaban los niños y prefería siempre a los más pequeños.

En la zona del malecón de Santo Domingo, específicamente en donde se encuentra un monumento a Montesinos (el fraile y misionero), el programa grabó con cámara escondida al hombre que durante más de cinco años representó a la Santa Sede en República Dominicana, pero que en sus tiempos libres se dedicaba a buscar menores de edad para abusar de ellos.

Ahí estaba Wesolowski, originario de Polonia y entonces de 65 años de edad, a veces metido en bares tomando cerveza y otras dando largos paseos en la zona, siempre como a la espera de alguien.

Dos días después de la transmisión del reportaje, las autoridades de República Dominicana comenzaron una investigación judicial en su contra. Sin embargo, Wesolowski ya no estaba ahí. Apenas dos semanas antes, el 21 de agosto de ese mismo año, el nuncio apostólico había sido retirado de su cargo y reportado a Roma por el recién nombrado papa Francisco sin explicación alguna a la opinión pública.

Fuentes del Vaticano cuentan que en los meses pasados el papa Francisco quedó impresionado al leer el caso Wesolowski.

Un sacerdote que hace esto, traiciona el cuerpo del Señor, porque este sacerdote debería llevar a los niños a la santidad, y estos niños confían, pero él, al contrario, abusa de ellos y esto es gravísimo”, habría dicho el papa Francisco.

Además, señalan las fuentes, algo que dejó profundamente impresionado a Bergoglio, fue que en una reunión que mantuvo con víctimas de sacerdotes pedófilos el pasado 7 de julio provenientes de Alemania, Irlanda y Reino Unido, una mujer que había sido violada de niña le señaló el hecho de que no bastaba reducir a los sacerdotes al estado laico como único castigo.

Fue el martes que el caso Wesolowski dio un giro, pues por primera vez en la historia de la Santa Sede un obispo de tan alto rango fue arrestado por la Gendarmería Vaticana con las acusasiones de pedofilia. “Por haber seducido a muchachitos en Santo Domingo pagándoles por prestaciones sexuales”, dijo el mismo portavoz Federico Lombardi.

Wesolowski, quien desde el pasado mes de junio, luego de una investigación por parte de la Congregación de la Fe, fue condenado a dejar los hábitos y a seguir su vida en estado laico. Hoy está en arresto domiciliario (por causas de salud), pero le espera un proceso penal, además del canónico, donde ya ha perdido la inmunidad diplomática y podría ser sujeto de otros procedimientos judiciales por parte de otras magistraturas.

Sin embargo, como el exnuncio no tenía casa en el Vaticano, seguirá su proceso en una habitación del Colegio de los Penitencieros, al interior del tribunal vigilado para evitar que se fugue de los muros vaticanos.

Además de Wesolowski, hay otros dos casos de obispos bajo investigación por pedofilia, de los cuales aún no se dan a conocer los nombres.

Fuente

A Giant Step Backward: The Dominican Republic Reforms Its Constitution

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A Giant Step Backward: The Dominican Republic Reforms Its Constitution

Posted by Reed M. Kurtz – December 2, 2009 at 7:45 pm

(This article was originally posted for the North American Congress on Latin America. It can be accessed in its original form here: https://nacla.org/node/6278)

In a region where leaders’ efforts to reform their nations’ constitutions dominate the headlines, one political regime is flying under the radar in its efforts to radically overhaul its foundational political charter. On November 16, an assembly in the Dominican Republic overwhelmingly approved the final draft of sweeping reforms for what may become the most reactionary constitution in the Americas. The constitutional reforms are expected to be officially signed into law by President Leonel Fernández in a ceremony in early December.

Fernández has spearheaded the reform campaign with the backing of a powerful coalition of the Catholic Church, the business community, and the hard Dominican right. But while conservative proponents of the new constitution (ironically) defend the changes as “progressive” and “liberal,” many observers both inside and outside the country have expressed their grave concerns that these changes will in fact mark a great step backwards for the Dominican Republic.

Accordingly, the effort to implement these reforms has been met with a vigorous campaign of popular resistance as dissident Dominicans have been taking to the streets in protest, expressing outrage at their exclusion from the debates surrounding the reform process, as well as their fears that the reforms will have devastating consequences for the most vulnerable segments of Dominican society.

The most controversial of the new reforms is Article 30, which establishes that the “right to life is inviolable from conception until death.” Effectively, this provision will outlaw abortion under all circumstances, including cases of rape and/or situations in which the mother’s health is at risk. Critics have complained that this measure is likely to undermine women’s access to contraception and reproductive health care in the country.

Women’s health advocates and human rights organizations have strongly criticized the measure and the majority of what little international media attention there has been on the constitutional reform process has been focused on this issue.
Noting that the new provision not only undermines women’s bodily sovereignty and the right to full access to medical procedures and sexual health care, organizations such as Amnesty International also argue that a total ban on abortions will only lead to an increase in maternal deaths. This fear has been heightened by a recent study on the negative effects of the total abortion ban in Nicaragua. The Guttmacher Institute, a sexual rights and reproductive health organization, recently issued a report documenting the severe harm caused by complications from unsafe abortion procedures upon the health care systems of developing nations, costing these already strained systems hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

The Catholic Church, which maintains a very powerful presence in the country, played an instrumental role in lobbying lawmakers to implement Article 30. But despite the fact that an estimated 90% of Dominicans consider themselves Roman Catholic, recent polls also demonstrate that 80% of Dominicans reject a total ban on abortions and only 14% support regulating abortion through constitutional reform.

Also included in the new version of the Carta Magna is language that defines marriage as “the union between a man and a woman,” legally institutionalizing discrimination against same-sex couples and further contributing to a social climate in which bigotry towards gays, lesbians, and transgendered people is prevalent. LGBT people in the country have been widely scapegoated for the spread of the AIDS virus and recently, several transgendered people have been brutally murdered.

Another controversial provision that may well inflame already-existing tensions within the country would strip the native-born children of undocumented immigrants of their Dominican citizenship. This “reform” will surely have severe consequences for those children born into a state of legal limbo, and is likely to foster further discord in relations between Dominicans and their Haitian neighbors. About one million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, many without official documents. They, like other vulnerable minorities, are blamed for the country’s social and economic problems, and routinely face harassment, exploitation, systematic prejudice, and direct violence.

Finally, in a move that has significant symbolic effect on the marginalization of ordinary Dominicans, another constitutional reform would establish private property rights on the country’s valuable public beaches.

This last measure only further validates the new constitution’s antidemocratic credentials. Indeed, one might even say that this provision is a fitting summary for reform process itself. Just as the majority of Dominicans will soon be excluded from their own beaches, they have been excluded from any meaningful role in the drafting of their new constitution, forcing them to take to the streets in order to make their voices heard.

Meanwhile, left-leaning political regimes elsewhere in the region have been instituting constitutional reforms by means of popular referendums, ensuring that the public plays an active role in shaping their political institutions. Yet not only have leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, and Bolivia’s Evo Morales come under intense media scrutiny for their efforts, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was deposed in a coup this past summer for his mere attempt at a popular referendum to consider a constitutional reform. Where, we might ask, is the same level of scrutiny and criticism from Western media outlets towards this blatantly discriminatory and antidemocratic reform process in the Dominican Republic?

The Dominican reform process, and the resistance it generates, merits our close attention. One way or another, it will have broader, regional consequences in the not too distant future.

Source: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/reed-m-kurtz/2009/12/giant-step-backward-dominican-republic-reforms-its-constitution