Christian Cooper, who made national headlines when a white woman named Amy Cooper (no relation) unjustly called the cops on him in Central Park last month, is using his newfound fame to endorse a fellow openly gay man in hopes that he will beat his homophobic opponent.
He is endorsing Councilman Ritchie Torres in a heated race to rep the South Bronx in Congress. Ritchie is going up against many others including Ruben Diaz Sr. who has a lengthy history of bashing the LGBTQ community.
“Ritchie in his own person unites a whole bunch of things. He is openly gay. He is Latino. He is the intersection of a couple of things that are about equality and justice where people aren’t getting their fair shake,” Cooper told New York Daily News on Sunday, June 7.
Cooper then went in on Diaz Sr. who he had nothing but bad things to say about. He described him as being “about really vile things, particularly as regards the LGBT community, of which I’m a member.”
“Rubén Díaz Sr. has been on gay people’s radar for a long time as far as how he has come after us over and over and tried to stifle our fundamental equal rights,” he continued. “That’s how the race got on my radar.”
Cooper then switched gears and went right back into praising Torres. “Ritchie’s been openly gay and doing great stuff in the City Council for a while. Hell, yeah, I’ll support Ritchie.”
Diaz Sr’s problematic behavior with the LGBTQ community dates back many years. He got himself in trouble in 2019 when he made anti-gay remarks against openly gay City Council Speaker Corey Johnson.
What’s homophobic about saying that the gay community controls the nyc city council ? I’m giving them credit for the power and influence they have.
— Rev Ruben Diaz, Sr. (@revrubendiaz) February 9, 2019
“When I get to the City Council, I find that the City Council is controlled — most council members out of 51 council members — over there, everybody is controlled by the homosexual community,” Diaz Sr. said in an interview with a Spanish-language TV program for cab drivers. He later doubled down on his words on Twitter.