The Out Hotel Is No More, Thanks to Ted Cruz

Out Hotel and club

Readers may recall when I wrote about Ian Reisner and his business partner, Mati Weiderpass, self-anointed A-List gays who hosted a fundraiser for anti-gay zealot, Ted Cruz.   The backlash against Reisner and Weiderpass has taken its toll and now the Out Hotel and New York City and the affiliated gay club (which the husband and I visited a year ago last September) has been sold and will no longer cater to an LGBT clientele.  The Advocate looks at the fall of Out Hotel thanks to Ted Cruz.  Here are excerpts:

The hotel that had become a symbol of support for Ted Cruz’s antigay policies is now closing.

The Out Hotel in New York City faced a heated boycott last year after its gay owners held a fundraising dinner party at their home for the Texas senator and Republican presidential hopeful. Ian Reisner and his business partner at Parkview Developers, Mati Weiderpass, came up with a lot of reasons for that party, but none flew.

 

Numerous groups canceled events in outrage, including the New York Gay Men’s Chorus, AIDS Walk, Broadway Bares, Urban Bear, and more. When the boycott began spreading to the Fire Island Pines commercial district, the management there publicly distanced themselves from their chief investor. A Facebook group launched in the hopes of exacting a punishment, though exactly what that should be was always unclear. 

Things had recently calmed down, with that Facebook group disbanding, but business remained slow. The Real Deal, a real estate blog, reports Out NYC was just sold for $40 million to Merchants Hospitality. Its hotel, restaurant and nightclub will no longer cater to a gay clientele.

Cruz, booed by his own party during the Republican convention, was named The Advocate’s Phobie of the Year at the end of 2014. Along with a table of high-dollar guests, he’d met with Reisner and Weiderpass in April 2015. The two had first claimed it wasn’t a fundraising dinner but later admitted donating $2,700 — the maximum allowed — as a show of “support for his work on behalf of Israel.” 

The owners have been alternately contrite and angry during the boycott. They feigned ignorance about Cruz’s anti-LGBT policies and asked for forgiveness. Nothing seemed to work.

It wasn’t a win for Cruz either. When asked about the dinner party on the campaign trail, he called himself a “big tent Republican” and simultaneously announced he’d push for two new anti-LGBT bills in the Senate. The first would amend the Constitution to allow states to define marriage as only between one man and one woman, and the second would ban federal courts from ruling on marriage. Amping up his anti-LGBT rhetoric, though, didn’t stop the meeting from coming up here and there in attacks against him as weak on LGBT issues. 

The hotel might never have made money, even before the boycott began. In an interview in May 2015 with New York magazine intended to smooth things over — but that actually insulted LGBT consumers — Reisner said it hadn’t turned a profit. 

 

 

Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass Fundraise for Anti-Gay Senator

Seemingly, Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass learned nothing from the debacle surrounding their fundraiser for anti-gay extremist, Ted Cruz.  Now the two self-anointed "A-listers"  are back raising money for an anti-gay politician who opposes civil rights for the rest of non-A-lister gays.  Reisner and Weiderpass apparently believe that their wealth protects them from the consequences of policies pushed by anti-gay Republicans such as Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the latest enemy of LGBT individuals to benefit from their fundraising.  In their self-centered world, the rest of us gays can go f*ck ourselves.  Gay City News looks at this latest slap in the face to the LGBT community by these douche bags.  Here are highlights:

A host and guests at a fundraiser held by embattled real estate developers Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass at their Central Park South penthouse donated at least $10,600 to Republican Ron Johnson, a right-wing US senator from Wisconsin who faces a 2016 challenge from Democrat Russ Feingold. Reisner, who is gay, gave Johnson $2,700, the maximum allowed under federal election law.

Other donors who maxed out at the Johnson event were Ken Mehlman, a longtime Republican Party operative who is also gay, and Sam Domb, a longtime Reisner business associate. Domb owns the property that houses the Out NYC, Reisner’s Midtown hotel.

The hosts and the guests were supporting Johnson because of the senator’s support for Israel and his views on the Middle East, according to the press release, which described those in attendance as “a bipartisan group of Jewish business leaders –– both committed Republicans and several traditionally aligned with Democrats.”

The Out NYC and Reisner’s properties in the Pines on Fire Island came under boycott after the New York Times reported that he held an April 20 fundraiser for Republican Ted Cruz, a Texas senator and candidate for the Republican nomination for president.  . . . The community objected to Reisner and Weiderpass taking money from their LGBT customers and giving it to anti-LGBT right-wingers.

Cruz and Johnson are associated with the Tea Party movement and are anti-LGBT. Both oppose same-sex marriage and both voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in 2013.

Reisner and Weiderpass did not respond to requests for comment. 

Let the boycotts continue!!

New York Hotelier Lied About Ted Cruz Donation

Ian Reisner (pictured above) and his business partner Mati Weiderpass are both in my view "legends in their own minds" gays who see themselves as "A listers."  Reisner is also proving to be an out and out liar as he tries to do damage control following his host of a "fire side chat" with anti-gay zealot Texas Senator Ted Cruz (the following day, Cruz introduced two anti-gay bills).   Reisner's claims that no donations were made to Cruz's presidential campaign have proven untrue and, if anything, Reisner has dug himself an even deeper hole as calls for boycotts of his businesses continue.  Metro Weekly looks ate this latest phase of Reisner's self-created shit storm.  Here are article highlights:

Ian Reisner just can’t extricate himself from the web of lies he spun in the wake of the Ted Cruz scandal.

After hosting the anti-gay Republican presidential candidate for a “fireside chat” in April, Reisner and business partner Mati Weiderpass (both gay) faced a huge backlash from the LGBT community. Though initially apologizing for hosting Cruz, Reisner has since repeatedly clashed with his detractors in statements made to the press, including calling gays “cheap” and “entitled.”

Reisner attempted to diffuse the controversy by claiming he wasn’t hosting Cruz (he was), that it was organized by others (it wasn’t), that he had no idea about Cruz’s anti-gay history (implausible), and finally by saying that he regretted the incident entirely. Still, though, Reisner continues to dig an ever-deeper hole for himself.

It transpires that not only did Reisner host Cruz in his Manhattan apartment, he also made the maximum possible donation to his campaign. Reisner cut Cruz a check for $2,700, despite telling New York magazine earlier this month: “There were no checks given, it was nothing like that.”

The New York Times, which initially broke the story of Reisner’s meeting with Cruz, has learned that after Reisner was aware that the LGBT community wasn’t happy with his hosting Cruz, he asked for his check back.

What further complicates matters for Reisner, who hosted a fundraiser for another anti-gay politician earlier that month, is that Weiderpass apparently did not donate to Cruz’s campaign.

For Ian Reisner, it seems no amount of PR and damage control can solve the problems caused by his support for Senator Cruz.

Reisner is either a total idiot or pathological liar.  

Why the Boycott Against Ted Cruz's Gay Hosts Is Important

I suspect that gay hoteliers, Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, who hosted extremely anti-gay U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), at their posh New York City apartment continue to be in shock that they have not been able to blunt the outrage at their conduct.  Indeed, after going from trying to explain their betrayal of other gays with far fetched explanations to supposed sincere apologies, Ian Reisner has attacked gays as "cheap," "entitled" and other insults.  I and others believe that it is important that privileged gays who are removed from the discrimination and lack of legal rights most of us face not be allowed to betray the larger LGBT community as they fluff their egos.  Perhaps Michelangelo says it best in a piece in Huffington Post where he condemns what he calls "victory blindness.".  Here are excerpts:

For almost two weeks a boycott has been in full force against two gay hoteliers, Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, who hosted anti-gay U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), now running for the 2016 GOP nomination for the presidency, at their Central Park South apartment. One of them boasted about it on Facebook a couple of days later, seemingly oblivious to the backlash he'd face. In a matter of days, Cruz, one of the most vocally anti-gay members of the U.S. Senate, introduced two bills aimed at blunting same-sex marriage, including a constitutional amendment. Organizations such as Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the New York City Gay Men's Chorus have canceled fundraisers at the men's hotel, Out NYC, and the Fire Island Property Owners Association is under pressure to take a stand against the men, who own businesses in the Fire Island Pines, including a nightclub, bars and a hotel. 

The most telling thing that Reisner said at the outset, quoted by The New York Times in response to the backlash, perhaps hoping the entire affair would blow over, was that marriage equality is "done -- it's just going to happen," as if it doesn't matter anymore and the men could pursue support of Cruz on other issues upon which they agree, such as his right-wing policies toward Israel. As the uproar grew, the men released a statement, changing course, saying that the evening provided "the opportunity to have a candid conversation with Senator Ted Cruz on why he should rethink his view on gay marriage," as if this was all about reaching out to the other side. When that didn't quell the outrage, and with a protest by LGBT activists soon to happen in front of their hotel on 42nd Street last week, the men offered a full-blown but insincere apology that was all about trying to save their businesses, with Reisner declaring he was "shaken to the bone." Indeed.

Reisner's first words revealed his true belief, and they've been echoed by some gay activists and some gay pundits in the media in recent days. Jamie Kirchick of The Daily Beast called those who support the boycott "illiberal" for enforcing "groupthink" and criticized Reisner and Weiderpass for apologizing.

This is what I call, in the first chapter of my new book, "victory blindness," and many LGBT people, including even many activists, often succumb to it in this heady time of big wins. In fact, every one of us can and does succumb at various moments, wanting to only see the victories and not face the deeply embedded homophobia and transphobia still pervading our culture, and slough off the decades-old political movement still organizing against us and still quite determined. 

But Ted Cruz and other anti-gay conservatives are fighting us at every turn to keep us from getting full civil rights, and every other announced or would-be GOP presidential contender publicly supports the effort. There are no federal protections for LGBT people, as we see stories every day of people thrown out of restaurants, shops, and taxis, or fired from their jobs, simply for being gay or transgender. And our enemies are now on a "religious freedom" crusade, casting themselves as victims, intent on pushing bills to create exemptions to any laws that do ban discrimination. Just looking at Texas, Cruz's home state, there more than 20 anti-gay bills that conservatives are intent on getting out of committees in the legislature in the next three weeks.

And now still others succumbing to victory blindness are doing the same thing again. In the Washington Blade Mark Lee chastised activists for "attempting to outlaw political opinion," with the headline of his opinion piece charging that many of us are really "not ready to win," because we should be embracing those who would reach out and work with Ted Cruz and should be fostering "an appropriate sense of communal celebration and circumspect congeniality."

But that is the fallacy that victory blindness promotes. It makes people believe the best strategy moving forward is to be nice and respectful -- just when we actually need to be as confrontational as ever. And that allows the backlash to organize, giving it a space to grow, allowing our enemies to use some of us as cover. This has happened to other movements, and it will happen to us if we allow it to happen.

[T]hat's why the boycott against the hoteliers is so important and really is a watershed moment. We've got to make it clear to the enemies of equality that we are a force with increasing public support, moving full speed ahead and accepting nothing less than equality.

[W]e must send a message to those among our own -- particularly those of enormous privilege -- who've succumbed to victory blindness and let them know that they too cannot support our enemies. No abject apology can undo the message that Reisner and Weiderpass have telegraphed to anti-LGBT forces in the GOP. And we have to make sure no one does it again. This is not the time for any of us to pull back.

Michelangelo, very well said.   Thanks to the husband's clientele, we often move in a wealthy Republican circles, but I never let up the advocacy and explaining why today's GOP has sold out the party's true principles and why decent, thinking people need to oppose the agenda of the far right.  Never make apologies for or hide who you are and never give up the struggle. 

Israel - The Reason Two Wealthy Gays Feted Ted Cruz

As Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass continue to reap a whirlwind over their recent soirée for Ted Cruz - they have now hired a PR firm in an attempt to do damage control - one cannot wonder WTF were they thinking.  As a piece in The Daily Beast explains, the reason for the ill-conceived move was Israel.  Both Reisner and Weiderpass support Cruz's extremist position on Israel which many - yours truly included - view as detrimental to America's best interests.  They conveniently ignore the fact that Cruz is wrong on all the other issues.  Here are column excerpts:

If you’ve ever been to Fire Island Pines, one of the leading gay utopias on the planet, you know that there isn’t much to do. There’s only one commercial center with a couple of stores, a bar, and a hotel.
And yet, in less than 24 hours, over 4,000 people have said they’re going to boycott it. The reason?

It’s owned by Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, the self-described “prominent NYC hotel owners” who recently hosted a “fireside chat” with Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz.

As if that weren’t enough, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS went one step further, canceling their popular “Broadway Bares” benefit. It had been scheduled for May 10 at the Out Hotel, which Reisner and Weiderpass own. “I have never considered that all of our many supporters would ever vote monolithically,” executive director Tom Moran wrote on his Facebook page. “But when any politician publicly holds so many of us in contempt… we cannot be misunderstood as standing with him/her.”

This is Ted Cruz, after all, one of 19 members of Congress on the Human Rights Campaign’s “Hall of Shame”, the man who authored the 2014 “State Marriage Defense Act,” which would ensure that gay people get no federal protections, ever. And who recently penned a letter sent to tens of thousands of Christian pastors, asking them to pray, preach, and presumably vote for him to support “biblical marriage.”

The first question many people must be asking themselves is, what the hell were Reisner and Weiderpass thinking? In the words of gay performer and humorist Justin Sayre, who is supporting the boycott, “Of all the people in the world to invite to a gay party, Ted Cruz? What was it? His sparkling wit? His fair and balanced repartee? Do you have a thing for Canadians? Does he make a mean gin rickey?”

[T]his was about Israel. Notice who the moderator was: Ted Cruz’s Jewish/Israel point man, himself a gay Jewish man and longtime Republican consultant.


Nor was this the first time Ian Reisner has hosted a Republican benefit at his home for that reason. Earlier this month, his Central Park South penthouse—where, incidentally, a 23 year old gay man was found dead of a drug overdose just a few months ago—hosted a fundraiser for Republican Senator Ron Johnson.

Shamelessly invoking the Holocaust, Reisner said at the time that his great aunt “was murdered in Auschwitz” and that “we are not too far from history to be wary of politicians who make bad decisions that threaten our lives.

This is what’s known as pinkwashing, the highlighting of Israel’s excellent record on LGBT equality as a way of defending its totally unrelated policies regarding Palestine or Iran. Israel is pro-gay, therefore support Israel in all ways.

Likewise, conservatives like Cruz, who write laws preventing my partner from visiting me in the hospital, suddenly wave the rainbow flag when it comes to Iran.

In other words, what happened in that penthouse was part of a much larger pattern of gay Jewish Republicans putting LGBT civil rights aside, and putting Israel First.

Reisner added that he’d just hosted a “Ready for Hillary” benefit at the Out Hotel. So, should LGBT folks cut Reisner some slack?   No.

It’s no coincidence that Reisner and Weiderpass are rich, white, cisgender men cozying up to another rich, white, cisgender man. They may be gay, but they profoundly don’t get it—the “it” being that the same privilege that oppresses gays is the privilege that oppresses people of color, immigrants, women, and the poor—precisely the groups that Cruz’s policies would hurt the most.

It’s not a coincidence that Cruz is anti-gay and also anti-social-safety net, anti-reproductive-justice, and anti-affirmative-action. What extremely fortunate white gay men like Reisner and Weiderpass don’t understand is that it’s all one big package: the classism, the religious conservatism, the social conservatism—these all go together.

Reisner and Weiderpass don’t deserve a pass. Supporting Ted Cruz isn’t a matter of weighing his hawkish Iran views against his backward anti-gay views, because they are but two aspects of a consistent, conservative ideology that also includes climate denial, allowing the wealth gap to increase, and dismantling the social safety net. You can’t pull the one thread you like out of the tapestry; the whole thing unravels.

Well said! Let the boycotts continue.