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Gay Hotelier Defends Hosting Reception For GOP Candidate Ted Cruz

[caption id="attachment_196411" align="aligncenter" width="606"]24CRUZ-web-master675 Photo: Mati Weiderpass's Facebook[/caption]

These days Republican presidential candidates are being grilled about whether they'd go to a gay person's wedding.

But Sen. Ted Cruz, who threw his hat in the ring in March, didn't have to do that much to get a group of gay hoteliers to throw him a posh reception in New York City.

On Monday, Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner—co-owners of the "straight-friendly" Out NYC—hosted a party for Cruz in a Central Park South penthouse.

Related: Another Republican Presidential Hopeful Is Going To A Gay Wedding

About a dozen guests were in attendance, along with Cruz's wife, Heidi.

News of the reception broke today, sparking outrage and calls for a boycott of the Out NYC and Fire Island Pines, where Reisner recently bought the commercial district at auction.

But the men stand by their decision.

“Ted Cruz said, ‘If one of my daughters was gay, I would love them just as much,’” recalled Reisner, who says he was just an attendee at Weiderpass’s event.

He doesn't see a disconnect between his own LGBT activism and Cruz's anti-gay views: Same-sex marriage, he said, “is done — it’s just going to happen.”

The focus of the evening was apparently foreign policy—including opposition to President Obama and a discussion of gay rights in Israel versus the rest of the Middle East.

On Facebook this evening, Weiderpass reiterated his own support for gay rights and marriage equality. He said the reception was an attempt at crossing the aisle.

"The fact that Senator Cruz accepted the invitation to my home was a step in the right direction towards him having a better understanding of who I am and what I believe in," he wrote.

"We spent most of the time talking about national security issues and in particular the challenges from ISIS, Iran, and defense of Israel," he added. "These are issues for which we did find common ground."

But according to the New York Times, the senator made his opposition to marriage equality abundantly clear at the event.

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Cruz is also vocal supporter of Indiana's new religious freedom law, which makes it legal for a business owner to discriminate against LGBT people on religious grounds.

When Emily's List, Walmart and other companies voiced their condemnation of the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Cruz called it “Fortune 500’s radical gay marriage agenda” at work.

Related: Jon Stewart Mocks GOP Candidates' Gay Wedding Attendance

"The Fortune 500 is running shamelessly to endorse the radical gay marriage agenda over religious liberty," he said. "Any person of faith is subject to persecution if they dare disagree, if their religious faith parts way from their political commitment to gay marriage.’”

Reisner has also been in the news lately—Earlier this year he and a business partner paid $10 million for the Pines commercial district, home to the Pavilion, Sip and Twirl and other popular venues.

And in October, a 23-year-old Brooklyn man was found dead at that very same penthouse Cruz was feted at, the victim of an apparent drug overdose.

Sean Strub, a longtime AIDS activist, is among those calling for a boycott.

"How can anyone else spend money with them to support this kind of 'activism' that is so wildly dangerous?," he posted on Facebook, along with a link to a boycott page.

"Ted Cruz would be the first to look the other way as queers were put in the ovens," he wrote, "if it wasn't he who was turning on the gas."

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