Gay businessmen apologize for hosting Ted Cruz political event
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Republican Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas speaks at the Iowa Faith & Freedom 15th Annual Spring Kick Off, in Waukee, Iowa, Saturday, April 25, 2015. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
One week after hosting an intimate dinner for presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz, two gay men who lent their Manhattan duplex for the event are regretting they ever did.
One of them, hotel owner Ian Reisner, apologized to the gay community on Facebook saying he wasn’t fully aware of the Texas conservative lawmaker's stance on same-sex marriage and gay rights.
“I was ignorant, naive and much too quick in accepting a request to co-host a dinner with Cruz at my home without taking the time to completely understand all of his positions on gay rights,” he wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I am shaken to my bones by the e-mails, texts, postings and phone calls of the past few days. I made a terrible mistake,” Reisner also said on his Sunday evening posting.
The New York Times first reported on the “fireside chat,” which took place on April 20 at the luxurious apartment co-owned by Reisner and his business partner Mati Weiderpass.
The Times said about a dozen people were invited to the event, which was not a fund-raiser.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Unfortunately, I cannot undo this,” Weiderpass wrote on a separate Facebook posting. “The people that know me know the work that I have done over the last 20 years for the advancement of gay rights. Today, I came to realize that I might have nullified my past efforts and accomplishments in just one week.”
Reisner owns the gay-friendly hotel Out NYC and Fire Island Pines, a premier vacation destination for the gay community just 50 miles east of New York City.
Before the online apologies, a page calling for a boycott of both properties had gotten more than 8,200 “likes.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Meanwhile, at a GOP event in Iowa over the weekend, Cruz defended his appearance at the event, which according to Politico he described as “primarily a pro-Israel fundraiser.”
“Unfortunately, our good friends in the press caricature support for traditional marriage in terms of animus,” he said, according to Politico. “The only explanation that makes sense to reporters is that anyone who supports traditional marriage … must be somehow motivated by hatred for those who are homosexuals. It’s why this story seems so puzzling to the media.”
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