Homosexual US senator urges Pope Francis to stop cardinal’s fight against US ambassador’s homosexual agenda
The Dominican Republic’s Cardinal Archbishop Nicolás de Jesús
López Rodríguez is raising eyebrows as he turns up the rhetorical heat against
homosexual U.S. ambassador “Wally” Brewster and his “husband,” who are accused
of meddling in the country’s internal politics and of using their relationship
to promote the Obama administration’s homosexual agenda.
The cardinal’s recent tough language against the aggressive pair
have led Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat who favors abortion and homosexual
“marriage,” to write to
Pope Francis asking him to correct López Rodríguez.
The latest round between Brewster and the cardinal began in late
November, when Brewster reportedly threatened the president of the country’s
electoral commission, Roberto Rosario Marquez, with revocation of his U.S. visa
if he did not carry out electoral reforms advocated by the ambassador. Later in
the week Brewster gave a speech before the country’s chamber of commerce
accusing the government of corruption. The ambassador’s actions sparked outrage
in a country that is wary of American meddling in the nation’s internal
affairs.
While López Rodríguez acknowledged that corruption exists in the
country, he accused Brewster of promoting his own kind of corruption in a press
interview on December 2, noting that the ambassador is “seeking to introduce an
agenda in the country that has nothing to do with his diplomatic functions, such
as promoting gay, transvestite, transsexual and bisexual activism,” in the
words of the Dominican newspaper Listin
Diario.
“The man should go back to his embassy, and as a wife of a man,
he should take care of his home,” retorted the cardinal in a sarcastic
reference to Brewster’s sex partner Bob Satawake, whom Brewster takes with him
to official functions, and whom he calls his “husband.”
Brewster has repeatedly used his position as ambassador to
further the Obama administration’s policy of pressuring
poor Carribean nations to
capitulate to the gay agenda, and even made a video in 2014 with Satawake to celebrate “LBGT Pride
Month” on the island. He has also flown the homosexualist rainbow flag over the
embassy.
The presence of Brewster and Satawake has been widely regarded
in the Dominican Republic as a provocation and an insult to the moral values of
the country, which is largely Catholic and includes a lively Evangelical
Protestant minority. The arrival of the couple led to calls for a nationwide
protest by
Christians called “Black Monday,” in which black ribbons were worn to express
rejection of the appointment.
López Rodríguez added that he wasn’t afraid of Brewster revoking
his U.S. visa. “I don’t care about traveling, nor does an American visa matter
to me,” he said. “I have two visas, one for my diplomatic role which recognizes
me as a cardinal, and another which has not expired. With the greatest pleasure
I would surrender the visa to the ambassador.”
Brewster responded two days later by dismissing the cardinal’s
comments as “noise,” and implying he was guilty of inciting “hate” and
“discrimination.” “I think that hatred and marginalization take many forms, and
this isn’t specifically directed at his comments, but I think that when you
marginalize anyone, people with disabilities, women, LBGT individuals, you put
them in a box, you minimize their value, their possibility of expressing
themselves,” he said.
Asked about Brewster’s remarks two days later, the cardinal made
his disgust apparent, accusing the ambassador of seeking to introduce his
“faggery”(mariconería) into the country.
“Why should we put up with such a thing, an ambassador who is a
fag?” said López Rodríguez. “No, man, no, he should go home, he has no business
meddling here.”
Pope Francis urged to silence cardinal
The cardinal’s interventions
led Sen. Durbin, who has defended homosexual “marriage” in the United States,
to write to Pope Francis on December 15 asking him to act against López
Rodríguez.
Durbin, who identifies himself as a “Catholic,” calls Brewster
his “personal friend,” and complains of the cardinal’s strong language. He
claims that “The Church’s teachings on gay marriage are well known but the
Church also teaches us to show tolerance for those with different sexual
orientations. The intolerant public statements of Cardinal Rodriguez are
inconsistent with that clearly stated value.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, a compendium of Catholic
doctrine approved by Pope John Paul II, condemns homosexual acts as
“intrinsically disordered,” but says nothing about “tolerance” of such
behavior. The Church’s 2003 statement
on homosexual unions warns that
“tolerance might be exploited or used in the service of ideology,” reminding
governments “of the need to contain the phenomenon [of homosexual behavior]
within certain limits so as to safeguard public morality and, above all, to
avoid exposing young people to erroneous ideas about sexuality and marriage
that would deprive them of their necessary defences and contribute to the
spread of the phenomenon.”
Although Brewster’s defenders have repeatedly claimed that he is
not in the Dominican Republic to promote the homosexual agenda, the U.S. State
Department admitted in a response to the cardinal’s statements that Brewster is
carrying out the government’s pro-LBGT policies.
“U.S. policy is dedicated to eliminating barriers to equality,
fighting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and
engaging LGBTI communities around the world,” said State Department Spokesman
Pooja Jhunjhunwala in an interview with the Washington
Blade, a homosexual publication based in Washington, D.C. “Ambassador Brewster,
like all U.S. ambassadors, advances this policy along with many other aspects
of our bilateral relationship.”
Cardinal López Rodriguez’ tough stands have resulted in great
setbacks for the international abortion lobby, which attempted to achieve a
legislative reform in 2007 that would have legalized abortion in the country.
Following a series of protests led by the cardinal, the national legislature
instead approved a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion altogether in
2009. That amendment was then used to nullify
an abortion legalization measure passed in
2014.
