Controversy Over Choice of Wealthy Gay NYC Businessmen to Host Benefit for Ted Cruz: Miles to Go Before We Sleep in Movement for Human Rights

No matter what happens with the deliberations about marriage equality at the Supreme Court today (and in the weeks following), we who are LGBT in the U.S. and those supporting our rights have miles to go before we sleep. This is one of the lessons I draw from the choice of wealthy gay businessmen Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass to host a benefit recently for Ted Cruz. Two pieces of commentary (among many I've read) that leap out for me, as descriptions of the miles we still have to go in this human rights journey:

Jay Michaelson at Daily Beast:

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.

And Kerry Eleveld at Daily Kos: 

The entire imbroglio highlights the divide between big-city gays and those who reside in less progressive parts of the country. It may be all too easy for some to sit in a Manhattan high-rise and find common ground on foreign policy with a blatant homophobe like Ted Cruz, even as his anti-gay efforts ravage the lives of LGBT Americans in his home state and elsewhere.

Yes and yes.

I find the graphic at a number of online sites, including this Galleryhip set of images to illustrate Robert Frost's Poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening." But I find no statement about the original source of the image. If any reader has that information, I would appreciate it.