When the gay hoteliers Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass found themselves under siege for hosting a dinner for Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who is running for president and has been vociferously opposed to same-sex marriage, they repeatedly stressed that the event was not a fund-raiser.
“There were no checks given, it was nothing like that,” Mr. Reisner told New York magazine, after The New York Times first reported on the mid-April dinner at the Central Park South penthouse.
Protests and calls for boycotts of Mr. Reisner’s and Mr. Weiderpass’s properties, including their groundbreaking hotel for gay clientele, the Out NYC, ensued.
As it turns out, Mr. Reisner himself wrote a check to Mr. Cruz’s presidential campaign, making a $2,700 donation — the maximum allowed in a nominating contest — around the time the dinner took place.
But shortly after The Times reported on the dinner, where about 18 people sat down at two tables in separate areas of the palatial penthouse, Mr. Reisner called the campaign and asked for his check to be refunded.
“In the interest of transparency, I gave Senator Cruz a $2,700 check to show my support for his work on behalf of Israel,” Mr. Reisner said in a statement he provided after The Times learned of the donation from two people with direct knowledge of it. “When I realized his donation could be misconstrued as supporting his anti-gay marriage agenda, I asked for the money back. Senator Cruz’s office gave the money back, and I have no intention of giving any money to any politicians who aren’t in support of L.G.B.T. issues.”
A spokesman for Mr. Cruz declined to comment. Mr. Reisner, a friend insisted, was aware that his donation — and the refund — will appear on Mr. Cruz’s campaign finance filing when it becomes public in July.
Mr. Reisner and Mr. Weiderpass have been doing damage control for over a month since the dinner, which made them pariahs in New York City’s gay rights community in which they’d been figures for years. As two people who have rarely donated politically, they seemed surprised by the reaction, stressing they were drawn to Mr. Cruz because of their mutual interests in foreign policy. Mr. Reisner repeatedly insisted he was unaware of Mr. Cruz’s strident views against same-sex marriage, and has since apologized and denounced the Texas lawmaker.
Mr. Cruz faced some questions over why the campaign didn’t do a more thorough vetting of Mr. Reisner and Mr. Weiderpass, business partners and former lovers who still co-own their penthouse, where a young man was found unconscious in their bathtub from a drug overdose last October and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Yet the anger at the hoteliers has been fierce and unrelenting. Mr. Reisner is under great pressure from angry residents in the Fire Island Pines who want him to divest of his interest in the commercial property there. In early May, Eric von Kuersteiner, a businessman on Fire Island who previously owned the properties in the harbor, even approached Mr. Reisner offering to buy him out for somewhere in the ballpark of $2 million.
Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist who works with several gay rights causes, said he was not surprised to learn that there had been a check given after all, saying it’s typical for campaign staff members to follow up after such events asking if attendees would consider making a “max-out” donation.
“Anyone with a passing knowledge of politics knows this,” Mr. Reinish said. “So the idea that fund-raising was not a part of this was not believable from the get-go.”
Still, he said there was something unthinkable about a person in Mr. Reisner’s position giving any money to Senator Cruz.
“It’s not like they sat down with Jeb Bush,” he said. “They sat down with a proud enemy of the gay community. Ted Cruz legislates on that, he runs on that. It’s one of the foundations of his platform and it’s not just opposition to gay marriage. He’s against basic civil rights and he’s been out there on that from the very beginning.”
Mr. Weiderpass, who served in the military, said that he had not given a check to Mr. Cruz himself. He seemed surprised to learn of Mr. Reisner’s donation, when told about by it as he was walking between tables at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square on Thursday night. He was there for an event hosted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, at which Mr. Cruz happened to be one of the speakers.
Rabbi Boteach, who supports gay rights, has been trying to build a bridge with Mr. Cruz over such issues, and invited Mr. Weiderpass to attend, the hotel developer said.
He was not there to see Mr. Cruz, although that was exactly what happened.
“Literally the first person I saw was Senator Cruz” when he arrived at the event, Mr. Weiderpass said. They exchanged “hellos,” and Mr. Weiderpass moved on. He said he didn’t want to create a new story out of their encounter.
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