Petrelis Files

Jamaican Consul in S.F. Won't Meet With Gays;

Concern Raised Over Buggery Penalties

According to an article in Jamaica's leading newspaper, The Gleaner, in early March the prime minister, Bruce Golding, renewed his campaign against gay people when he opposed a legislative effort to decriminalize the sodomy statutes:

[Golding] described gay advocates as "perhaps the most organised lobby in the world", but has vowed not to yield to pressure to wipe buggery from the books as a crime.

"We are not going to yield to the pressure, whether that pressure comes from individual organisations, individuals, whether that pressure comes from foreign governments or groups of countries, to liberalise the laws as it relates to buggery," Golding said in Parliament yesterday. ...

But Golding made it clear that his government was not prepared to accept suggestions or demands for the crime of buggery to disappear from the books. ...

After years of reading accounts of horrific violence perpetrated against gay Jamaicans, and rampant police and government indifference to the well-document human rights abuses and daily fears faced by gays, I left a message with Newton Gordon, DDS, the honorary consul in San Francisco for Jamaica, requesting a meeting to discuss the prime minister's remarks. Gordon and I spoke on Friday.

He explained that he's not a citizen of Jamaica, is not an official agent of the government, has absolutely no contact with the foreign ministry and that he was the wrong person to speak to regarding my concerns.

When I pointed out his listing as an honorary consul on the government's web site, listing his dental office at SF General Hospital as his official consular address, he said he had no control of such listings.

Well, what exactly does he do as the honorary consul? "Answer questions about visas," Gordon said. "I don't have a flag or a plaque or a coat of arms here at my office."

I mentioned how odd it was that the Department of Public Health allowed him to conduct consular business on the hospital's campus, and he replied that he's actually a professor with the University of California. Okay, I said, you're a UCSF employee with a diplomatic function that you carry out on the municipal hospital's campus.

Gordon suggested I pursue a meeting with either the embassy in Washington or the consulate in Miami, to which I replied I was hardly in the position to fly to either city for a meeting, and again requested a meeting with him.

After all, a letter from even an honorary consul about the concerns of San Francisco gays would carry more weight than a letter written by activists, and would be one of the points of our chat. Again, Gordon said no.

Before ending the phone conversation, I informed Gordon that moves were afoot for a boycott of Jamaican rums and the Red Stripe beer in the gay bars, restaurants and cafes of San Francisco because of the Jamaican government's deadly homo-hatred.

I didn't mention that I have also requested the health department brake any lease or agreement it may have with him to provide any consular services. If there is no such document, then I want the DPH to instruct Gordon and the foreign ministry to remove his name and contact information on all their web sites and issue a notice of such changes to the press in Jamaica and the USA.

And regarding the contention by Gordon that he's just a very minor cog in the Jamaican foreign ministry's machine, he sure didn't sound that way in this letter, in which he touts his link to the government, an ID card from the US State Department and a listing in the phone book as a rep for another nation. If that ain't someone to talk to in San Francisco about the abuse of gay people in Jamaica, then who is?

Here's the letter to the Jamaica Association of Northern California from Gordon, who is the president of the board of the group:

Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000

Please be informed that I was appointed Honorary Consul for San Francisco by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jamaica, Seymour Mullings. This appointment was certified by the U. S. State Department on January 31, 00, [sic] with issuance of a Consular Identification Card. The State Department recognizes one of my offices Locations [sic] as the address of the consulate:

Dept. Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
San Francisco General Hospital
1001 Potrero Ave., NH-1N1
San Francisco, CA 94110
Tele: 415/206-5833
Fax: 415/206-5834
Home: [DELETED]

The home number will be listed under Consulate and Other Foreign Government Representatives in the yellow pages of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, San Jose and Santa Clara.

I am confident there will be a mutual working relationship between the Consulate and JANC.

Signed,
Dr. Newton Gordon

[Photo credit of Newton Gordon: UCSF.]