Prominent LGBTQ activist spurns Mayor Adams from Zero Bond birthday party over anti-gay hires
Mayor Adams got snubbed on his own turf this weekend.
Prominent LGBTQ rights activist Allen Roskoff didn’t invite Adams to his birthday party at Manhattan’s Zero Bond nightclub Saturday because of the mayor’s recent interest in hiring pastors with anti-gay views, the Daily News has learned.
Zero Bond, an exclusive club in NoHo, brimmed with Big Apple politicos for Roskoff’s 72nd birthday bash, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, state Attorney General Letitia James, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and several current and former Council members.
But Adams — who’s known to regularly patronize the members-only club and even held his election night victory party there in November — was conspicuously absent because Roskoff said he made a point of not inviting him.
“Why would I invite someone I’m at war with?” Roskoff told The News on Sunday.
Adams has faced intense backlash from Roskoff and other LGTBQ community leaders since it emerged earlier this month that the mayor was looking to hire former Councilman Fernando Cabrera as the executive director of City Hall’s sprawling Office of Community Mental Health.
Hizzoner backed off picking Cabrera for the mental health job amid outrage over the ex-councilman’s long history of anti-gay rhetoric — including offering praise for Uganda’s notoriously homophobic government during a 2014 visit to the country.
But as first reported by The News last week, Adams then moved to find a new “faith-based” administration post for Cabrera, who is a Christian pastor in the Bronx.
Late Monday night, Adams announced Cabrera will serve as his senior faith adviser.
Adding to the controversy, Adams last week appointed Erick Salgado, another pastor with a long history of anti-gay and anti-abortion views, as an assistant commissioner for immigrant affairs. Prior to that, Adams tapped Gilford Monrose, a Brooklyn pastor who has criticized gay rights activists for demanding “uncompromising acceptance,” to lead his new Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships.
Asked how Adams spent Saturday night in light of Roskoff’s Zero Bond snub, City Hall spokesman Fabien Levy declined to comment other than sharing a link to a tweet the mayor posted of himself meeting with former Yankee shortstop Alex Rodriguez in Midtown.
Roskoff, who has known Adams for decades and is the founder of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, said he’s especially insulted by the mayor’s silence amid mounting criticism over his hires.
“He hasn’t called me or anyone else in the gay community, as far as I know, to try to explain,” he said.
Roskoff added: “What is this City Hall? An employment agency for homophobes?”
Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran New York political consultant who worked for ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Adams’ controversial appointments could have a strategic element to them.
He noted that marriage equality and other gay rights priorities may not be top-of-mind issues for the political base of outer-borough Black and Latino voters who carried Adams to victory in November’s election.
“If it’s a political calculation, he could say, ‘So what?'” Sheinkopf said of the pushback to Adams’ appointments. “He may have made a calculation that Latinos are more important citywide than gays.”
Regardless of Adams’ reasoning, criticism over his appointments has grown in recent days.
On Monday afternoon, the City Council’s LGBTQ Caucus — which is made up of six Democratic members and one Republican — condemned Cabrera and Salgado and urged Adams to keep both men out of his administration.
“We, the LGBTQ Caucus, stand firmly against these appointments,” the members said in a joint statement. “Our democratic government should represent the people, and its officers should be individuals on whom all New Yorkers can rely. Our city is home to plenty of qualified potential candidates for these roles.”