After New York City experienced one of the most appalling anti-gay crimes in recent memory, the Republican nominee for governor, Carl Paladino, decided to visit an Orthodox Synagogue in Brooklyn and deliver an anti-gay diatribe.
Addressing Orthodox Jewish leaders, Mr. Paladino described his opposition to same-sex marriage.
“I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t,” he said, reading from a prepared address, according to a video of the event.
And then, to applause at Congregation Shaarei Chaim, he said: “I didn’t march in the gay parade this year — the gay pride parade this year. My opponent did, and that’s not the example we should be showing our children.” Newsday.com reported that Mr. Paladino’s prepared text had included the sentence: “There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.” But Mr. Paladino omitted the sentence in his speech.
These would be insensitive remarks in any context, but the New York area is already suffering through the trauma of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi’s suicide and the torture and assault of three gay men in the Bronx.
It would be hard to select a more inopportune time to pick on the gay community.
