“Politics is about issues and disagreements, but politics has to be also about values,” Ruben Diaz Jr. said. | Getty Images and AP Photo Diaz family divide in the spotlight as father and son eye higher office

Ruben Diaz Jr. was 18 years old, broke and scared.

He had just finished his senior year at Adlai Stevenson High School in the Bronx when he found out his girlfriend, Hilda, was pregnant with his child. He was afraid to break the news to his father, Ruben Diaz Sr. — a socially conservative Pentecostal minister who would go on to become a fixture in Bronx Democratic politics.


So, like many teens in their position, they turned to a well-known organization for help.

“We didn’t have conversations of protection and sexual intercourse growing up. My brother became a teenage father at 16. Hilda and I got pregnant at 18. I didn’t know how to tell my father,” Diaz Jr., now 46 and the Bronx borough president, said in a recent interview. “So thank God for Planned Parenthood. … [It] allowed for us then to move forward so that he can have a healthy grandson who also bears his name, Ruben III.”

The experience formed the young Diaz’s career-long support of Planned Parenthood. But the same nonprofit that provided the couple prenatal care they couldn’t otherwise afford has disavowed his father over his uncompromising opposition to abortion, which he once compared to the Holocaust.

It would not be the last time the father and son would privately debate their conflicting convictions. But now the relatively peaceful coexistence they have carved out in the personality-driven ecosystem of New York politics is in peril and their Shakespearean family drama is being thrust into the spotlight just as both eye higher office.

Diaz Sr., a City Council member, is running for an open congressional seat next year, and his son has yet to decide whether to endorse him. That decision will inevitably impact his own standing in 2021, when he hopes to become the first Latino mayor of New York City.

Backing his father risks alienating the socially liberal Democratic voting base that will likely pick the next occupant of Gracie Mansion. Supporting someone else carries other downsides — older black and Hispanic voters have already cautioned him against putting politics above family.

“Oh lord, you should go and try to write that story,” he said earlier this fall, during his most extensive interview yet on his relationship with his father.

“For them it’s like, what type of son or daughter can be trusted if for their own political gain all they’re going to do is throw their father under the bus?” he asked between bites of meatballs at a trendy restaurant on Grand Concourse. “Politics is about issues and disagreements, but politics has to be also about values.”

Diaz Jr. was first elected to office at the age of 23, winning a seat in the state Assembly and establishing himself as an ascendant player in the intra-party feud that long dominated Bronx Democratic politics.

As his stature grew, so too did attention to his father’s provocations.

While serving in the state Senate in 2003, for instance, Diaz Sr. filed a lawsuit to block the expansion of a public high school geared toward gay students, arguing it violated the Constitutional rights of heterosexual students.

Last year he borrowed rhetoric from the Republican Party when he warned of “the caravan of immigrants coming through Mexico and headed to invade the United States of America” in his signature “What You Should Know” column in The Bronx Chronicle. (Though he is a Democrat, he has expressed a kinship with President Donald Trump, saying the two are “making enemies everywhere.”)

And earlier this year a reporter uncovered footage of him saying the Council on which he sits is “controlled by the homosexual community.” The Spanish language interview went viral, and Diaz Jr. took the unusual step of publicly demanding his father apologize.

The younger politician occupies a centrist lane in the city’s left-leaning Democratic party, embracing real estate development and establishment politicians like Gov. Andrew Cuomo. But he said he firmly disagrees with his father’s opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage and has argued with him behind closed doors for years.

It wasn’t until he received a phone call from someone insisting his father apologize, though, that he was motivated to publicly denounce his words.

Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is openly gay — and a likely political competitor in the upcoming mayor’s race — phoned Diaz, Jr. after the comment was first aired on NY1 to say he was insulted. The borough president then called his father and asked him to apologize, and when he refused, he took to Twitter.

“NYC is a place where we celebrate our diversity and inclusivity. The LGBTQ community is unequivocally an essential voice in our City. @revrubendiaz’s sentiments are antagonistic, quarrelsome and wholly unnecessary. He should apologize,” Diaz Jr. tweeted.

“I’m never going to ask my father or anybody else to apologize for their political views. But if you offend someone, then I’ll say you should apologize,” he told POLITICO.

His father declined to express remorse.

Instead, Diaz Sr. doubled down on his remarks and, during a rally with supporters outside his district office, made clear he had no plans to heed calls for his resignation. His granddaughter and nephew, both of whom are gay, attended.

Johnson, who declined to comment for this story, ended up dissolving the Council’s for-hire-vehicle committee that he initially created for Diaz Sr. as a favor to the Bronx Democratic Party when he became speaker last year.

Two weeks after the flare-up, Diaz Sr. ended his tradition of attending his son’s annual “State of the Borough” address.

“You’d have to ask him that question,” Diaz Jr. said, when asked about it. “I didn’t disinvite him.”

He acknowledged that his father’s views “won’t help” him in a citywide campaign — already a considerable challenge for a candidate with limited name recognition outside of a borough with relatively low voter turnout.

Nevertheless, he repeatedly questioned why he should be judged for his father’s views.

He pointed out that he openly talks about his marriage to his high school sweetheart, who works as the assistant director of operations at La Guardia Airport, and the career paths of his children. “But no one really cares about that,” he lamented. “No one writes about that.”

“Look, he is out of step and I don’t have to answer for him,” he said. “I’m one of the people who unequivocally has said 'you’re wrong, you should apologize, you need to be more disciplined about how you word things.'”

“But I’m not here to be apologetic for him,” he added.

The two sparred publicly once before: In 2016, Diaz Sr. invited Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz to the Bronx to give him a tour and help him raise money. His son, a Hillary Clinton supporter, called it “offensive” and “insulting.”

Diaz Sr. said he and his son have the “best relationship,” as he hurried out of City Hall last month, initially declining to speak before offering a few thoughts.

“The best person that the city of New York could elect as a mayor, the best human being, the [most] capable, the best leader that the city could elect as a mayor is Ruben Diaz Jr. Not because he’s my son, but he’s a great human being,” he said.

He acknowledged that his views will probably cost his son support in the mayor’s race, and said it would be “unfair” for people to hold his son accountable for his views.

As for Planned Parenthood, he reiterated his opposition to funding the organization but did not seem bothered by his son’s reliance on it nearly three decades ago.

“We have a good relationship as a father and son,” he said. “Politically speaking, he has his beliefs, I have my beliefs, we respect each other.”

Despite all the controversy he instigates, Diaz Sr. is well positioned to win the multi-candidate primary to replace retiring Rep. José Serrano next year.

Some political operatives warned that would present new problems for Diaz Jr.

“I don’t envy his position,” said Jon Reinish, a Democratic consultant at SKDKnickerbocker, who is unaffiliated with the mayoral hopefuls.

An endorsement of his father would pose a risk to progressive voters; not supporting him could appear as “pandering to liberal voters” for his own benefit, Reinish said.

Should Diaz Sr. win, he will be situated to spar with New York’s most recognizable member of Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“He’ll fight with Pelosi. He’ll fight with AOC. He’ll fight with the LGBTQ members. He’ll fight with a lot of women,” Reinish said. “This guy will be a complete malevolent clown from the day he walks in there if he wins that race.”

Camille Rivera, a partner at consulting firm New Deal Strategies, said Latino voters are evolving from strict Catholic norms and would not necessarily punish Diaz Jr. for his father’s views as long as he doesn’t explicitly back him in the race. (Rivera is working for a different candidate in the congressional race, former Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.)

“While it’s unfair that he has to be tied to his father’s beliefs … primaries are about the people who are true believers in their party, the Democratic party, and they’re not going to be forgiving on endorsing a candidate that has these extremely far-right radical views,” she predicted.

If the Diaz family dissension poses risks for both father and son, it might also prove relatable to voters with that sort of dynamic in their own families.

Fordham political science professor Christina Greer said liberal voters who disagree with their own parents might relate to Diaz Jr. “If he frames it the right way it could actually be a positive,” she said. “People will see their family complexities in the Diazes.”

“I love my father,” the son said. “That’s my father; that’s my old man. What do people want, for me to hate him?”