More blowback for gay businessmen who hosted Cruz

Two gay businessmen who held a reception for Sen. Ted Cruz continued to face blowback Friday as a nonprofit canceled an event at one of their nightclubs.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, an AIDS fundraising nonprofit prominent in the New York City theater community, announced it would be canceling its fundraiser scheduled for next month at 42West, a nightclub owned by Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner. Weiderpass and Reisner hosted Cruz, the Texas senator and presidential candidate — and vocal opponent of same-sex marriage — at their duplex apartment earlier this week for a “fireside chat” and dinner.


“We cannot in good conscience hold an event at a venue whose owners have alienated our community,” Broadway Cares executive director Tom Viola wrote in a statement on Friday.

“It is a rare instance where the actions of a donor negatively impacts us as an organization and potentially jeopardizes our relationship with others whose support is integral to our success,” Viola added. “But when it does occur, in a way that’s blatantly against all we stand and work for, we can’t pretend it doesn’t come with consequences. Silence is not a neutral position. It is complicit.”

Weiderpass and Reisner have faced criticism from the gay community since a New York Times report detailing the meeting with Cruz. A Facebook page urging supporters to boycott two establishments owned by Reisner — including a New York City hotel co-owned with Weiderpass aimed at serving gay customers — had more than 4,700 subscribers as of Friday evening.

Earlier this year, Reisner hosted a fundraiser for Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who also opposes same-sex marriage.

Cruz, a tea party favorite, has long called for a constitutional amendment that would disallow the federal government and courts from reversing state marriage laws. Most recently, he introduced another piece of legislation to prohibit the federal courts from deciding on same-sex marriage until such an amendment is put in place. In the past, the senator has called himself a supporter of traditional marriage, harshly criticized the Supreme Court for effectively allowing same-sex marriage to move forward in five states and said in a 2011 email that “engaging in homosexual conduct is a choice.”

Most recently, he dodged a question about whether he would attend a gay wedding.

Cruz spoke mostly about national security at Monday’s event at Weiderpass and Reisner’s apartment, The New York Times reported, saying only that he believes the states should decide their own marriage policies and that he wouldn’t love his daughters differently if they were gay.

Cruz on Saturday will speak at a summit hosted by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, a socially conservative group influential in the state’s evangelical community.