For The Record - By Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz

For the Record

I need to state exactly what I told Liz Benjamin from the NY Daily News this past Tuesday evening because some of the important facts that I told her were not reported:

I told Liz Smith that the gay community has been jamming my office phone line and making threats to me and my staff. I told her that I am very angry that my office has received phone calls threatening my life and calling the women on my staff "whores" and "bitches". I told her that to add to those names, Ed Koch called us rats.

I told Liz that the only rat is Ed Koch. I told her that when he was Mayor and was rejected in my community, the only person who stood by him was this rat, and that now this rat is good no more. I told her that I am so angry that because of their calls and editorial boards and because of the insulting Koch statement, there is nothing else that they can do to us or say to us, and that they will see what we can do.

That, my friends, was the basis of my anger, not because the gay community is jamming my phone lines. I am an elected official and I am an old man, and they can do this any time. It was the content of their calls that made me angry. I welcome people to call my office – but with respect to me and to my staff.

When I told Liz that they will see what we can do, this was not at all meant to be a physical threat. As far as what we can do, we have many options, which include: going to the Republican Party, staying neutral to create an impasse, or going to the Democratic Party.

So that is the whole story, and I hope it will set the record straight, for good or for bad.