Speaker candidates honor Alan Cumming and Billy Porter

Original published at: https://pagesix.com/2013/11/19/speaker-candidates-honor-alan-cumming-and-billy-porter/

By Richard Johnson

Alan Cumming
Getty

Two of the top candidates for City Council Speaker pressed the flesh Monday night, when the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club honored Alan Cumming and “Kinky Boots” star Billy Porter for their support of gay marriage and other issues.

The event took place at the Flatiron loft of former Public Advocate Mark Green. City Council members Melissa Mark-Viverito and Dan Garodnick paid homage to the club’s powerful president, Allen Roskoff, as well as Brooklyn Democratic leader Frank Seddio, amid a group of judges, district leaders and Albany lawmakers.

Christian Campbell, brother of actress Neve Cambell, said of “The Good Wife’s” Cumming: “He’s a social activist. He’s a supporter of 17 different causes. He wears rubber bands.”

Cable TV pioneer Robin Byrd heckled, “That’s what he calls them!”

One of Cumming’s pet issues is banning circumcision, which he considers genital mutilation. Campbell announced that Cumming is writing a book titled, “May the Foreskin Be With You.” He wasn’t joking.

Porter said he came out as gay in Pittsburgh in 1985 at the height of the AIDS panic. “I knew something had to change,” Porter said. “Evil prevails when good people do nothing.”