Eric Adams Tests the Waters for Anti-LGBT Politics in New York City
In his latest surprise move, New York City mayor Eric Adams has named three antigay pastors to his administration. He appears happy to buck liberal opinion and basic human dignity and decency to cater to homophobic social views.

New York City mayor Eric Adams has appointed three pastors with noted antigay views to his administration. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Eric Adams has made many curious moves in his first two months as mayor. He’s attempted to hire his brother for a $200,000 a year NYPD gig and installed a deputy mayor for public safety who was embroiled in a corruption scandal. Now he is barreling into another controversy by naming three pastors with noted antigay views to his administration.
Fernando Cabrera, a former city councilmember who once called Uganda “godly” after the nation made some homosexual behavior punishable by life in prison, will be a senior adviser in the mayor’s newly created Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, where he will work alongside Gilford Monrose, a Brooklyn pastor who once said being gay is “a lifestyle that I don’t agree with.” Adams also named Erick Salgado, a Brooklyn pastor and former mayoral candidate once endorsed by the National Organization for Marriage’s political action committee, assistant commissioner for external affairs in the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.
Adams defended both moves, pointing to how these men have allegedly evolved in their views. “This is a different America when marriage was first brought to the floor. If we say, ‘Everyone who did not get it then should be banished permanently,’ that’s the wrong message,” Adams told reporters last week. “The goal is to convert, allow people to evolve so that they can see the error of their ways. That’s who we are.”