Saying they are fed up with the diplomat's gay agenda, the people of Dominican Republic are demanding President Barack Obama to recall U.S Ambassador James "Wally" Brewster, who is an LGBT advocate.
Church leaders, politicians and education officials in the Caribbean island nation lodged a petition at the White House last week, accusing Brewster of promoting an "LGBT agenda inconsistent with the Christian cultural values and tradition of the Dominican Republic," CNS News reported.
The White House "We the People" petition received more than 25,000 signatures within three days of being posted this week—more than a quarter of the 100,000 required in a 30-day period to earn a formal response from the administration, according to the report.
The petition mentioned other concerns, including the formation last week of an LGBT Chamber of Commerce, and the fact that the ambassador "involves his spouse" in official duties, such as school visits.
According to reports, Brewster and long-time partner Bob Satawake frequently appear at social events together, acts that Dominican citizens deem improper.
"Though we have proved to be a tolerant country, we deem this agenda disrespectful to the culture and traditions of most Dominican families," according to the petition.
Church leaders also want the government to declare the U.S. diplomat ''persona non grata," stressing that he violated Article 55 of the Dominican Republic's Constitution, which upholds marriage as a union between a man and woman.
"We ask the government, which is responsible for complying with and enforcing Dominican Republic's laws and the constitution, to expel and declare the U.S. diplomat persona non grata," Rev. Osvaldo Torres, head of a federation of pastors in the northern Cibao region, was quoted as saying on Tuesday last week.
Torres said promoting same sex relationships was a "humiliation to our homeland."
The Dominican Teachers Association likewise asked the country's education ministry to bar Brewster from visiting public or private schools with his husband, saying "the rights of children should be protected."
The overwhelming calls from different groups to recall Brewster was fuelled by the envoy's latest move to launch an LGBT Chamber of Commerce, which according to the U.S. Agency for International Development's mission director for the Dominican Republic would be funded some $1 million "to bolster" the LGBT community in the country.
Brewster is not the first openly gay man appointed as a U.S. ambassador – President Obama nominated no fewer than five in 2013 alone.
But while others were accredited to Western countries with liberal views on homosexuality, he was named envoy to a developing nation, 95 percent of whose 10 million people are Roman Catholic.
Prior to Brewster's confirmation as a new ambassador, a Catholic bishop on the island has already blasted the Obama administration for appointing the former National LGBT co-chair for the Democratic National Committee, saying the move demonstrated "a lack of sensitivity, of respect by the United States."
