US Congressman Slams NYC Gay Hotel Owners: Don’t Support People ‘Who Believe We’ll Burn In Hell’
A Democratic U.S. Congressman just penned an open letter to the LGBT community slamming the two gay NYC real estate developers who hosted a Ted Cruz fundraising dinner.
Rep. Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, today wrote a letter to the LGBT community commenting on last week’s dinner for Sen. Ted Cruz, held by Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner. The two businessmen are wealthy real estate developers who make their living  by creating and running gay-focused businesses, like the gay hotel they named The OUT NYC. They also lease space to other LGBT businesses, like gay bars, whose customers’ money helps fatten their wallets.Â
The LGBT community has been up in arms over the dinner, not because it was a “conversation,” but because it put money and contacts into the hands of one of the Senate’s most virulently anti-gay lawmakers. Senator Cruz, literally that same week, after sitting in the Manhattan home of two gay men, turned around and filed two bills that would halt same-sex marriage, one of which would make banning it constitutional.
LOOK:Â Over 100 Surround NYC’s Gay OUT Hotel To Protest Owners’ Hosting Ted Cruz (Photos And Video)
“People, we need to get ourselves together,” Pocan writes in the Huffington Post today. His letter is in direct response to Reisner and Weiderpass, whom he says, “seemed unaware of Cruz’s disgusting views as they gleefully hosted and posted pictures of Cruz at their event last Monday.”
“I know there are Republican members of the LGBT community,” Rep. Pocan, who took Senator Tammy Baldwin’s seat when she was elected to the Senate. “And there are Republican legislators who support equality, albeit not many. Fine, go ahead and throw them a fundraiser they will remember for a long time. But let’s not support those who believe we’ll burn in hell because of who we are and who we love,” he urged.
Pocan labeled the dinner event for Cruz as “ridiculous” and “counterproductive” for the LGBT community, asking, “how can you provide financial and political support to a candidate whose views are completely at odds with your very being?”Â
“It just doesn’t make sense,” he surmised. “And we should not support people who’d rather see us without any equality at all.”
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Related:
‘A Terrible Mistake’: Embattled NYC Gay Developers Forced To Issue Apologies For Hosting Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz Makes A Gay Connection
Ted Cruz: My Fundraiser With Rich Gay NYC Real Estate Developers Proves I Am A ‘Big Tent Republican’
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Image by WisPolitics.com via Flickr and a CC license
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