Ian Reisner is a powerful New York hotelier who made headlines recently when a young gay man died in the bathtub of his penthouse, the victim of an apparent drug overdose after spending the night partying with Reisner, 46.
Senator Ted Cruz, of course, is the Republican presidential contender who launched his campaign at the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, where he inveighed against the evils of marriage equality in specific and homosexuality more generally. “Imagine a president,” Cruz declared, who would kill the Affordable Care Act, abolish the Internal Revenue Service while “defending the sanctity of human life and uphold the sacrament of marriage.”
We can imagine, and it’s not pretty.
How Cruz ended up in Reisner’s Central Park duplex that Reisner shares with is business (and former romantic) partner, Mati Weiderpass, would be the stuff of Broadway except that you can’t make it up. Google searches would have told Cruz that the home was the scene of a recent scandal and Reisner that Cruz is not exactly a friend of the gays. Weiderpass may well have the only Facebook page that manages to “like” both Ted Cruz and TheHaus ofMimosa, a drag musical comedy.
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Cruz, in the home of wealthy gay campaign donors, quite logically sidestepped his virulent hostility to same- sex marriage, saying it is an issue best left to the states. States that oppose same-sex marriage, we assume.
Reisner, one of the owners of the hotel Out NYC in Hell’s Kitchen, claimed that he was there to support his business partner, and that when it came to foreign policy Cruz was “on point.” How the religious conservative Cruz could be so wrong on social issues but so right on foreign policy was not explained.
“Ted Cruz said, ‘If one of my daughters was gay, I would love them just as much,’” Reisner told The New York Times, which broke the story.
Which goes to say that Cruz is fine with gay men, even gay men with recent young men-and-drug incidents, as long as they are not getting married and as long as they are rich enough to contribute to his campaign or have friends who might. His other gay “friend” is Facebook investor Peter Thiel, the openly gay San Francisco billionaire who has funded Cruz’s previous campaigns.
Sean Verdi of New York, a 23-year-old graduate of Steven’s Institute of Technology, was found comatose last October in Reisner and Weiderpass’s bathtub after spending the night with Reisner and other friends. Reisner was not charged in the case.
Steven Matthew Crandall
Pandering for the gay dollar of course
AtticusBennett
boycott.
Stephen Meeks
Because Reisner has bad taste?
Vic Stevins
@AtticusBennett: I wholeheartedly agree. What is it about wealth that makes homosexuals lose dignity, self respect and intellect?
AtticusBennett
@Vic Stevins: they’re republicans. they were never loved or accepted for who they are.
they need a tax break for the wealthy, because they pay for sex. and drugs. and drugs to give the boys they have sex with, because those boys need to be high to have sex with them. then the boys die from overdoses, and they need money to pay for lawyers.
behind every money-obsessed gay republican is the family that hated them.
David A. Lee
Chickens voting for the Colonel. Pathetic.
Jonathan26
In a letter this month to thousands of pastors across the country, Mr. Cruz asked them to lead prayer services as the Supreme Court justices hear arguments on same-sex marriage. Mr. Cruz wrote to the ministers: “Will we discard an institution, ordained by God, which has brought so much stability and happiness to the human family? Or will we stand in its support?”
How the interests of our community are advanced by supporting Mr. Cruz eludes me, but then again I’m not a “powerful New York hotelier who made headlines recently when a young gay man died in the bathtub of his penthouse, the victim of an apparent drug overdose.”
As a recently married gay man & longtime Fire Islander, I’m disappointed that Mr. Reisner now controls a key part of the Pines community.
Ummmm Yeah
Boycott. If it was anyone other than a traitor we would boycott. Where are our supposed leaders on this. Why isn’t someone in this traitors face about this already.
Rosalynn D'Angela
ted cruz is closet gay , mommies boy …
Luis H. Lopez
Gays with money who support homophobes are traitors !
Paco
“I got mine!” – Gay Republicans
Boy L Joey
his face looks faggoty
1EqualityUSA
Ted Cruz is such a goober. Queerty, that photo looks as though he’s doing a half-cheek sneak on a hard wooden chair. Love the stock photo.
Giancarlo85
@Vic Stevins: Not all rich gay people are that stupid to vote Republican. And some who don’t have much money vote republican. Somebody who votes Republican is demented and a self hater.
Any gay person that supports Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush or any of the other lunatics, is a self hating backstabbing a-hole. Where are the LCR losers on this site anyways?
jwtraveler
Easy. They’re both whores.
Alex Rothwell
Cruz needs a new quick gay best friend – which leads me to ask why would anyone gay want to associate with TC and be considered a friend ? With all he has said.
sectbrawn
Gay men like Reisner make me sick. They’ll sell their soul for a tax break and less government regualtion. They support freaks like Cruz and let others do the heavy lifting for their rights while they kick back and enjoy the benefits.
Cam
Also, be careful to spot the upcoming fake defense. Reisterstown started to claim that he also hosted a “Ready for Hillary” event so this was just being even handed. It is a lie, the Hillary event rented a banquet room in a hotel he owns but he was not a host and it seems didn’t attend the event.
But he is desperately trying to claim he hosted to avoid a boycott.
As for claiming Cruise is right on foreign policy, he seems to want us in another war, so this guy is giving funds to one of the most anti-gay candidates out thereand claims his foreign policy of wanting ANOTHER was is great? Boycott!
Dale Landefeld
do not care….Watch my care face.
onthemark
Reisner says “that when it came to foreign policy Cruz was ‘on point.’”
I didn’t realize the hotel Out NYC in Hell’s Kitchen needed a foreign policy.
Jeez, the tax stuff is bad enough, but how is Cruz’s demented foreign policy any different from any of the others? (Now that Rand Paul no longer even pretends to be different on that.) “Foreign policy” = bomb everything especially Iran, and including maybe Cuba in Cruz’s case.
1EqualityUSA
Reisner has crazy eyes.
dommyluc
Hey, Reisner, you lying, obfuscating, insidious, traitorous motherfucker – if you host and support someone like Ted Cruz -who, BTW, after his meeting with these two assholes, introduced 2 more anti-gay bills, including one to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage nationally – then you are NOT “an ardent supporter and activist for gay rights”.
Fuck you and the Log Cabin Republican jagoffs you rode in on.
dommyluc
And I know I may seem shallow (seem? That’s a laugh! Just thought I’d put that in there before someone else does. LOL!), but why would any self-respecting gay man support someone so butt-ugly on both the inside and outside. I mean even Bobby Jindal is more attractive than Cruz, and Jindal looks like something scraped off the used Kleenex at a Falcon Video shoot.
dommyluc
And I’m also waiting for the Log Cabinners to defend these dickheads in 3..2..1..
Rich Young
because . . . someone is sucking someone . . .or someone likes to be sucked.
Dwight G Grogan
I guess he got down on his knees for that donation.
Johnny Jaqua
Because all the gay animus is a smoke screen.
Matthew Boyes
DickHEADS
Robert Corvo
Sell outs
LubbockGayMale
I’m amazed at the money spent by out-of-state billionaires these days. I can understand why Ross Perot might back Cruiser in his state elections, but why do the Kochs, et al, back him? Because he’s an honest politician; he STAYS bought!
Bad Ass Biker
@Rosalynn D’Angela: I agree completely. I have always said that it is only a matter of time before little Teddy is caught with a boy friend or a rent boy.
Clay Miller
I just won’t ever stay at OUT
Gordon S. Hale
Money
David Edward Hollis
Birds of a feather flock together
martinbakman
@Boy L Joey: Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But yeah, he could be the understudy for Sassy Gay Friend of Second City.
Saint Law
Surely a couple of wealthy white gay Republicans can’t be so overweeningly self-entitled as to not forsee the shitstorm that would follow from their decision to entertain this lunatic?*
*rhetorical question
Kangol
People on here do know that Ted Cruz is introducing legislation in the US Senate to create a Constitutional amendment to allow religious-based anti-gay discrimination, right?
He actively is trying to introduce legislation to deny equality and take away rights from gay people. ACTIVELY DOING SO. He is a hatemonger of the highest degree, and an opportunist.
I don’t care how rich or white you are, to be gay and support someone like Ted Cruz is abominable, and the height of self-hatred and homophobia.
But as Ian Reisner, who paid no price for having a young gay man found dead in his penthouse (of course, because he’s a millionaire), is demonstrating, he cares nothing for the majority of LGBTIQ people and only for his selfish interests.
Beyond disgusting!
Kangol
@AtticusBennett:
Exactly. Boycott his hotels and real estate holdings. Maybe he’ll wake up then.
Maude
To paraphrase and mangle a Patric Henry Quote:
“Tho I am gay, and tho I don’t agree with what you say you believe, I would fight to the death, your right to say it, lest I lose my right to say what I believe.”
Bull Winkle
So, let me get this straight. This successful business man didn’t have the sense to research the candidate he brought into his home?
“I’ve spent the past 24 hours reviewing videos of Cruz’ statements on gay marriage and I am shocked and angry.”
Give me a break. You don’t get to be that successful by making an “oversight” like this.
Fact of the matter is, Reisner & Weiderpass would rather deny other gay men the right to get married, provided businesses get more tax breaks and subsidies and bailouts, which is what Cruz supports. They are selfish.
There’s more. Reisner is a staunch supporter of Israel. Cruz, like many others, is shamelessly pandering to Israel. Zionists like Reisner put the (perceived) good of Israel before gay men and his host country. That is traitorous.
Finally, if Reisner is such a conservative, why is he supporting Republicans? Republicans want big government telling us who to marry….subsidizing corporations… doling out bailouts to wealthy businesses… funding affluent countries. These are not conservative principles. Libertarians are conservatives.
Reisner is selfish. He puts the good of Israel before lesbians, gays and Americans. He doesn’t even know what a conservative is. He’s lying about not doing homework on Cruz.
I sincerely hope their businesses fail.
What’s even more disheartening is the deafening silence of the prominent gay activists. Isn’t it amazing how we give our friends a pass to support bigotry… but wanna “ruin the brand” when it comes to Dolce & Gabbana? Disgusting.
agmalt
How stupid !!! for men who make their money on the gay community… to not KNOW anything about Ted Cruz….READ A NEWSPAPER…Shame ON BOTH OF YOU!!!
Agmalt
silhouett
You might want to check this youtube introduction out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN1IXDrXgV0&feature=youtu.be