Wally Brewster

Wally Brewster
United States Ambassador to the Dominican Republic
Incumbent
Assumed office December 9, 2013
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Raul Yzaguirre
Personal details
Born	1960 (age 55–56) Lindale, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Bob Satawake
Alma mater	Tyler Junior College Texas A&M University

James Walter Brewster, Jr. (born 1960), commonly known as Wally Brewster, is the United States Ambassador to the Dominican Republic. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate of the United States on November 14, 2013. Brewster was the first person in a same-sex marriage to represent the United States at the ambassadorial level in the Americas.

Early life and education

Bewster was born in 1960.^[1] A native of Lindale, Texas, Brewster earned an A.A. in Marketing at Tyler Junior College in Texas in 1980 and completed his education in Business Administration at Texas A&M University in 1983.

Career

His career began with marketing and management positions in the Dallas area. In 1996, he moved to Chicago to work for a real estate investment trust, General Growth Properties, where he eventually became senior vice president for marketing and communications. In 2010, Brewster started his own company, SB&K Global, also based in Chicago.^[2]

In addition to his business career, Brewster served as the National Co-Chair of the LGBT Leadership Council for the Democratic National Committee and held the same role in the Obama 2012 campaign. As a fundraiser for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, Brewster and Satawake raised over $1,000,000 in donations.^[3] Brewster was also involved with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for more than 30 years and served on its National Board of Directors.^[2]

President Obama nominated Brewster for the post of Ambassador to the Dominican Republic on June 21, 2013, to replace Raul Humberto Yzaguirre, who resigned in May citing health reasons. The U.S. embassy in Santo Domingo noted the nomination on its website: "This nomination, given the close relationship between Mr. Brewster and President Obama, points to the importance of the Dominican Republic to the United States."^[4] When asked how the government of the Dominican Republic viewed the nomination in light of Brewster's sexual orientation, César Pina Toribio, legal advisor to Dominican President Danilo Medina said the nomination demonstrated that the government had been consulted and not objected.^[5]

On October 31, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee cleared the nominated and sent it to the full Senate for consideration.^[6] The Senate unanimously confirmed his appointment as Ambassador to the Dominican Republic on November 14 and he was sworn in by Vice-President Joe Biden at the White House on November 22.^[7][8] On the evening of that day, Brewster married his partner of 25 years, luxury real estate executive Bob J. Satawake. The ceremony and reception were held at the Hay-Adams Hotel, near the White House.^[9]

Upon arriving in the Dominican Republic, Brewster posted a video introducing himself and his husband on the embassy's web page.^[10]

Ambassador to the Dominican Republic

The nomination of an openly gay U.S. ambassador aroused controversy in the Dominican Republic, where during a July 2013 press conference, Cardinal Jesús López, referred to Brewster as a maricón, equivalent to "faggot" in American English.^{[lower-alpha 1]} An auxiliary Bishop of Santo Domingo, Pablo Cedano, issued a statement: "I hope he does not arrive in the country because I know if he comes he is going to suffer and will have to leave." Evangelical Christian leaders also denounced the appointment. U.S. Embassy spokesman Daniel Foote told reporters that Brewster was nominated "because of his skills as an international businessman and his ideas on democracy and human rights," adding, "Brewster arrives as an ambassador, he's not coming here as an activist for the gay community."^[12] The Vatican's ambassador to the Dominican Republic welcomed Brewster to the country and told him: "If you keep your private life behind the walls of your embassy, you'll be O.K. here".^[13]

On March 24, 2015, Brewster appeared on a panel of six gay U.S. ambassadors and was the only one to report a problematic reception in his host country. He said: "We knew that that's not who the Dominican people were as a whole, and I think that was important to us. Bob and I will celebrate 27 years together this year and from that perspective we both have a very strong Christian belief and so nobody is going to ever tell me that God doesn't love me."^[14]

On November 25, 2015, speaking during a Thanksgiving Day luncheon at the American Chamber of Commerce in the Dominican Republic, Brewster discussed joint efforts at improving education and public safety and in supporting investments in small business. He also said the business community needed to pressure the government to make progress in protecting the rights of women and minorities. He praised the efforts of the American Chamber and the DR business community in fighting corruption and said: "Every entrepreneur I know, either American or Dominican, mentions corruption as the biggest problem in this country. Corruption is a cancer; it retards growth, adversely affects trade and prevents the fair application of the law." He said it inhibited American investment and urged business leaders to make it an issue at the highest levels of government. He underlined the case of contributions to political campaigns: "there is no clean money from dirty people". Brewster noted that he had been criticized by some for interfering in Dominican affairs: "They say that when I speak, when I call for some action, when I speak in favor of some reform, I am violating the sovereignty of the Dominican Republic". He said his comments were essential to his role: "My job is to represent President Obama to the Dominican Republic with full authority to protect and defend the interests of the United States, its businesses and its people, while protecting human rights, enforcing international law, and promoting our bilateral relations". In words that do not appear in the transcript of he remarks, he was quoted as inviting his critics to match their rhetoric by cutting off their own ties to the U.S., saying they could "go the the [U.S.] embassy and turn in their visas".^[15]

Dominican journalist and political commentator Víctor Grimaldi replied in an open letter to Brewster that the poverty, corruption and discrimination found in the DR are a direct result of domination by the US since it supported the coup against Juan Bosch 1963 and then "invaded the country to encourage selfishness and irrational exploitation of our natural resources [and] established a system of privileges, murders, crimes and injustices". He said Brewster was also interfering in the DR's elections.^[16] Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez, Archbishop of Santo Domingo, called Brewster's statements about corruption meddlesome (injerencistas) and accused him of promoting "the agenda of the gays, transsexuals, transvestites, and bisexuals (la agenda de los gays, transexuales, travestis y bisexuales). The Cardinal later called Brewster a "wife" who should stay in the embassy and "take care of the house",^[17] Brewster replied that the Cardinal's comments fostered hatred and marginalization and said that he would concentrate on the embassy's initiatives to promote democracy and ignore the "noise" (ruido) of his critics.^[18]

In December 2015, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin sent a letter to Pope Francis that said: "In a recent interview Cardinal Rodriguez again described the ambassador as a 'faggot' and falsely claimed the ambassador was setting out to promote 'faggotry' in the Dominican Republic." He asked the pope to prevent further attacks on Brewster by church officials.^[19]

On March 2, 2016, Brewster announced a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to support a newly formed LGBT Chamber of Commerce of the Dominican Republic to support LGBT business owners.^[20] After the announcement, USAID director Alexandria L. Panehal appeared to reference LGBT candidates for public office when discussing her agency's grants.^{[lower-alpha 2][22]} After some objections from a candidate and an election official,^[23] the embassy denied the existence any such funding program in the Dominican Republic or any other country.^[24]

Later in March, the Dominican Council of Evangelical Unity held a press conference where they denounced Brewster and launched a campaign for Brewster's removal using the petition mechanism provided by the White House. The petition asked President Obama to remove Brewster as ambassador "for primarily promoting in his official duties an LGBT agenda inconsistent with the Christian cultural values and tradition of the Dominican Republic." The cited his promotion of LGBT tourism and bringing his husband on visits to public schools. They said he was using USAID funds to support LGBT activities. Ambassador Susan Rice commented: "He has the full support of this President, this White House and the entire U.S. government and I know he will continue to advocate tirelessly for the interests of the United States in the Dominican Republic. Bigotry in any form is against the universal values that we promote and does not support the social inclusion that we believe is important for a free society to succeed. We will continue to support Ambassador Brewster as he advances universal human rights."^[25]

On March 15, 2016, the Conference of the Dominican Episcopate issued a statement about the "deep concern and discomfort" and the "climate of unrest and unease" Brewster had caused by "exhibiting [Satawake] as his husband" at schools and sports functions in violation of the Dominican constitution's definition of marriage.^{[lower-alpha 3]} They said his invitation to return visas was a threat to deny visas to those who disagreed with him. They noted the offer to contribute to the election campaigns of LGBT candidates had been withdrawn, but questioned the sincerity of that withdrawal. They said they respected Brewster and his "partner" and his "homosexual condition", and objected only to Brewster's "abuse of power" and interference in their country's internal affairs. They called upon the government not to wait until the end of the election campaign to make a formal diplomatic protest.^[27]

President Danilo Medina, who is seeking reelection in May 2016, has not commented on Brewster or the charges made by his critics, nor has anyone in his administration.^[13]

A lawsuit seeking a court order to prevent Brewster and other embassy staff from visiting schools along with the ambassador's husband was dismissed on 5 April 2016. The judge called the suit "completely inadmissible".^[28] In late April, Auxiliary Bishop Victor Masalles said that Brewster's support of LGBT rights in the DR was an instance of "ideological colonization", a term used by Pope Francis, and that he suspected the U.S. government was pressuring Santo Domingo to modify its constitution. He said Brewster showed "an inability to distinguish his activism with his role as an ambassador" and that: "...we're suffering [from] him as a nation, as a culture, as a country that has its own uses and customs, and its own laws. He's trying to take [away] our right to national self-determination."^[11]

LGBT activists in the Dominican Republic have credited Brewster with helping to raise their visibility and remove the stigma attached to homosexuality there. A spokesperson for Human Rights First, a U.S.-based advocacy organization that reported on the status of LGBT rights in the country at the end of 2015, said: "Everyone seemed to think, even if they had mixed feelings about it, that overall it was a net positive. The presence of Ambassador Brewster has really spurred a larger conversation."^[29][30] One advocate for transgender rights said: "The arrival of this ambassador is the biggest thing that could have happened to us".^[13] Dominican LGBT rights activist Rosanna Marzan, executive director of Diversidad Dominicana, condemned the government's failure to respond to attacks on Brewster and wrote: "The attacks on Brewster are also attacks on us". She continued:^[31]

Those using hateful rhetoric against the ambassador have specific objectives. Among them, to quash the efforts that we as Dominican LGBT civil society activists have undertaken to defend ourselves against the hateful, violent and stigmatizing discourse orchestrated by hierarchies within the Catholic and Evangelical churches and the conservative individuals who support them.

See also

• LGBT rights in the Dominican Republic

Notes

1. In April 2016, Bishop Victor Masalles, an auxiliary bishop of Santo Domingo, defended the Cardinal's language: "If you don't allow an old man to express himself like an old man would, then you're undercutting his rights too".^[11]
2. Panehal was quoted as saying: "Ustedes saben que estamos en una campaña electoral y hay algunos candidatos-como ustedes saben-que representan la ciudadanía dominicana, incluidos los miembros de la comunidad LGBT, y también el fortalecimiento de organizaciones dominicanas que representan los intereses de la comunidad LGBT en la República Dominicana".^[21] (English: "You know that we're in an election campaign and, as you all know there are some candidates representing Dominican citizenship, including members of the LGBT community, and also the strengthening of Dominican organizations representing the interests of the LGBT community in the Dominican Republic".)^[22]
3. Article 55 of the Constitution of the Dominican Republic states: "The family is the foundation of society and the basic space for integral development of people. It is formed through natural or legal ties, by the free decision of a man and a woman to marry". (El Estado promoverá y protegerá la organización de la familia sobre la base de la institución del matrimonio entre un hombre y una mujer.)^[26]

References

1. "James Walter Brewster Jr. (1960–)". U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Retrieved March 29, 2016.
2. "President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts" (Press release). The White House, Office of the Press Secretary. June 21, 2013. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
3. "Ambassador to the Dominican Republic: Who Is James "Wally" Brewster Jr.?". allgov.com. July 9, 2013. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
4. Felsenthal, Carol (July 15, 2013). "Will Conservative Dominicans Shoot Down a Gay Chicagoan's Ambassadorial Nomination?". Chicago Magazine. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
5. Fieser, Ezra (July 1, 2013). "Gay nominee for US ambassador criticized, praised in Dominican Republic". Miami Herald. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
6. Pecquet, Julian (October 31, 2013). "Senate panel clears 24 ambassadors and other diplomatic nominees". The Hill. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
7. "Senate confirms James "Wally" Brewster as U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic" (Press release). Embassy of the United States: Dominican Republic. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
8. "Ambassador Brewster Arrives in Country to Assume His Duties" (Press release). Embassy of the United States: Dominican Republic. November 26, 2013. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
9. "Wally Brewster's Really Big Day: Sworn In As A US Ambassador, Marries Bob Satawake". The New Civil Rights Movement. November 22, 2013. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
10. Wally Brewster (2013). James "Wally" Brewster Embajador de los Estados Unidos para la República Dominicana (mov) (Video). San Bruno, California: YouTube. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
11. San Martin, Ines (April 30, 2016). "Bishop accuses US envoy of pushing pro-LGBT agenda". CRUX. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
12. Carroll, Rory (November 29, 2013). "Christian leaders rage at naming of gay US ambassador to Dominican Republic". The Guardian. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
13. Londoño, Ernesto (April 4, 2016). "Gay Pride and Prejudice in the Domincan Republic". New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2016.
14. Lavers, Michael K. (March 25, 2015). "Gay U.S. ambassadors take part in Newseum panel". Washington Blade. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
15. Reyes, Patria (26 November 2015). "Embajador EEUU dice corrupción en RD es un cáncer" [US Ambassador says corruption in the DR is a cancer]. Listin Diario (in Spanish). Retrieved 14 April 2016. no existe dinero limpio proveniente de personas sucias. Includes the full text of his remarks.
16. "Grimaldi culpa a EEUU por la corrupción y acusa a Brewster de tomar partido en proceso electoral de RD" [Grimaldi blames the US for corruption and accuses Brewster of taking sides in the DR electoral process]. Acento (in Spanish). 26 November 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2016.. Includes the full text of the letter.
17. Thomas, Juan Eduardo (1 December 2015). "López Rodríguez arremete contra embajador James Brewster" [Lopez Rodriguez blasts Ambassador James Brewster]. Listin Diario. Retrieved 15 April 2016. A ese señor que se meta en su embajada, y como esposa que es de un señor, que se ocupe de la casa, eso es lo que tiene que hacer él
18. Paniagua, Yuris (3 December 2015). "Embajador EEUU responde a críticas del cardenal López Rodríguez" [US Ambassador responds to criticism of Cardinal Lopez Rodriguez]. CDN. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
19. Chakraborty, Barnini. "State Department chides cardinal over gay slurs against US ambassador". FoxNews.com. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
20. "The US launches Dominican gay Chamber of Commerce". Dominican Today. March 2, 2016. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
21. "Embajador de EEUU y USAID financiarán candidatos que apoyan la comunidad LGTB" (in Spanish). DAI. March 3, 2016. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
22. "Washington's gay agenda targets Dominican Republic politics". Dominican Today. March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
23. "Dominican Republic officials push back Washington’s gay push". Dominican Today. March 5, 2016. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
24. "U.S. Embassy in Dominican Republic clarifies USAID director's comments". Dominican Today. March 7, 2016. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
25. Llenas, Bryan (March 11, 2016). "Dominican church leaders start White House petition to remove U.S. gay ambassador". FoxNews Latino. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
26. "Constitución Política de la República Dominicana, proclamada el 26 de enero 2010, No. 10561". Gaceta Oficial (in Spanish). 26 January 2010.
27. "Comunicado de los Obispos Dominicanos ante las actuaciones del Embajador de Estados Unidos en el país" (Press release) (in Spanish). March 15, 2016. Retrieved April 19, 2016.
28. "Tribunal declara inadmisible recurso de amparo presentado contra embajador James Brewster". El Nuevo Diario (in Spanish). 5 April 2016. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
29. Abiu Lopez, Ezequiel (March 28, 2016). "Dominicans see LGBT rights advancing with gay US diplomat". Washington Post. Associated Press. Retrieved April 1, 2016.
30. Bracken, Amy (April 13, 2016). "This human rights activist wants to be the Dominican Republic's first openly gay member of Congress". Public Radio International. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
31. Marzan, Rosanna (April 27, 2016). "Attacks on Brewster are attacks on LGBT Dominicans". Washington Blade. Retrieved April 27, 2016.