LGBTQ politicians, activists descend on City Hall to protest NYC Mayor Adams’ ‘hateful’ appointments
By Peter Senzamici, Michael Gartland and Chris Sommerfeldt
LGBTQ lawmakers and activists brought rage to Mayor Adams’ doorstep Thursday as they gathered outside City Hall to protest Hizzoner’s decision to hire three men with histories of anti-gay views for high-profile jobs in his administration.
The demonstration, which was held in City Hall Park and involved nearly 100 people, marked a culmination of weeks of anger over Adams’ appointments of Fernando Cabrera, Erick Salgado and Gilford Monrose, Christian pastors in Brooklyn and the Bronx who have used homophobic and anti-gay rhetoric.
“The tax dollars of LGBTQ New Yorkers are about to begin paying the salary of a man who has waged war on our rights and dignity at home and traveled abroad to applaud our imprisonment and death,” Brooklyn Councilman Chi Ossé said, referencing Cabrera’s praise for the Ugandan government’s harsh anti-gay laws during a visit to the country in 2014.
“Men like this taking positions of public authority are reflective of a broader disregard and even disdain for the LGBTQ community,” added Ossé, who described himself as “Black, queer and disappointed” and was joined at the protest by several other gay members of the Council.
Adams, who was behind closed doors inside City Hall during the protest, defended the hires by noting that Cabrera and Salgado issued statements apologizing for their past remarks after being appointed to faith and immigrant outreach positions earlier this month.
But longtime LGBTQ activist Allen Roskoff said their apologies did not pass the smell test.
“There is absolutely no excuse for him to be hiring hateful people who denounce us. And he says they’ve evolved. How have they evolved? By reading a statement that their Adams press office has put together?” said Roskoff, the founder of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club.
Cabrera, a former Bronx councilman, was tapped last week to become a senior adviser in Adams’ new Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships. Monrose, who has called homosexuality “a lifestyle that I don’t agree with” in social media posts, was picked as the executive director of that office earlier this month.
Adding to the controversy, Salgado, a onetime mayoral candidate endorsed by an anti-gay group, scored an assistant commissioner job in Adams’ immigrant affairs office last week despite his long history of opposing same-sex marriage.
The appointments have caused a major headache for Adams — with elected officials across the city, including Comptroller Brad Lander and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, urging him to rescind the hires in recent days.
“One appointment might be an oversight. Two appointments is a mistake. Three appointments is a troubling, troubling pattern,” Manhattan State Sen. Brad Hoylman said at the City Hall Park protest.
Cecilia Gentili, a trans activist, took it a step further and suggested the controversial hires make Adams a “homophobe.”
“What did you think, Adams? That we weren’t going to notice?” Gentili said.
While he didn’t comment on the protest itself, Adams took to Twitter after it wrapped up to tout his record of helping legalize gay marriage in New York as a member of the state Legislature in 2011.
“I’m proud to have been a leader in the fight for marriage equality,” he tweeted. “Sometimes it could be a pretty lonely fight. But it was worth it. We changed a lot of minds and we’re going to keep doing that work.”
One prominent elected leader who didn’t outright criticize the mayor when asked about his appointments Thursday was Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who told reporters that she respects his right “to appoint staff that serve at his pleasure.”
Still, the speaker said she privately raised concern about the new additions to Adams’ administration.
“My team and I have let the mayor’s office know our feelings on the importance of this and our concern about the role appointments have in this regard,” she said at a press conference inside City Hall as the protest roared outside.
If Adams doesn’t backtrack, the Rev. Pat Bumgardner of the LGBTQ-friendly Metropolitan Community Church said: “the unholy trinity” of Cabrera, Salgado and Monrose will continue to face the ire of the city’s gay community.
“If you want trouble, you found it,” Bumgardner said. “We are the children of Stonewall — we act up and fight back.”