Gay Republicans to Join Council, State Supreme Court
Ron Castorina, Jr., David Carr become fi rst out Staten Islanders in their posts
BY MATT TRACY
Concluding an election cycle
in which most other
out LGBTQ candidates
hailed from the Democratic
Party, two out gay Republicans
emerged victorious in Staten
Island: One of them is an incoming
city councilmember who has
worked for anti-LGBTQ lawmakers
and the other is a soon-to-be State
Supreme Court justice who voted
against transgender rights legislation
as a state lawmaker.
Out gay City Council candidate
David Carr defeated Democrat Sal
Albanese in a lopsided general election
race to succeed Steven Matteo
in Mid-Island’s 50th District, while
out gay Civil Court Judge Ronald
Castorina, Jr., won his competition
to become a New York Supreme
Court justice in the 13th Judicial
District. Carr and Castorina are
the fi rst out LGBTQ individuals
from Staten Island to win elections
for City Council or State Supreme
Court, respectively.
Prior to becoming a Civil Court
judge, Castorina — formerly the
chair of the Staten Island Republican
Party — worked in private
practice, served as a Republican
commissioner of the city’s Board of
Elections, and represented Staten
Island’s District 62 in the State Assembly.
As an assemblymember,
he voted against the Gender Expression
Non-Discrimination Act
(GENDA), which eventually passed
in 2019 and added gender identity
and expression as a protected
class in the state’s human rights
and hate crimes laws.
Castorina did vote in favor of
some other LGBTQ measures, including
a ban on conversion therapy
in 2017 and a trans-inclusive
bill requiring single occupancy restrooms
in state-owned buildings
to be designated as gender neutral.
In an email and subsequent
phone interview with Gay City
News, Castorina said he was unable
to “speak about politics or
past votes in any way… as much as
I’d like to,” citing the need to maintain
impartiality as a judge — but
David Carr speaks at a podium in September alongside Councilmember Joe Borelli (left), Congressmember
Nicole Malliotakis (second from left), Assemblymember Michael Reilly (right), and Assemblymember
Mike Tannousis and Borough President-Elect Vito Fossella.
he nonetheless touched on his approach
to voting.
“Suffi ce to say that I represented
one of the most conservative and
Republican Assembly districts in
the state, and that my votes represented
the values and opinions
of the community,” said Castorina,
who once made headlines during
his stint in Albany when he
referred to abortion as “African-
American genocide” in response to
out lesbian Assemblymember Deborah
Glick’s 2016 effort to codify
Roe v. Wade.
Speaking of his rise to the State
Supreme Court, Carr noted that he
hopes closeted LGBTQ conservatives
will look to him “as an example,
that they too can achieve, and
not have to shed or modify their
beliefs.” He expressed gratitude
to LGBTQ people who have paved
the way for others in the community,
but when pressed for specifi c
names, he did not mention anyone
in particular.
“Not anybody individually, but
going back to Stonewall and forward,
there have been pioneers
who have paved the way that I am
grateful for, and I stand on their
shoulders,” Castorina said.
The judge also heaped praise on
the Staten Island Republican Party
for being “a haven” for him and
other “gay conservatives” — and
TWITTER/@DMCARR
said he has found lasting friendships
and acceptance there “without
bigotry.”
Contrary to Castorina’s experiences,
however, many Staten Island
Republicans have continued
to be on the wrong side of the fi ght
for LGBTQ rights. Earlier this year,
Republican Staten Island Republican
Congressmember Nicole Malliotakis
voted against the Equality
Act, a long-stalled federal LGBTQ
non-discrimination bill, and Staten
Island Councilmembers Matteo
and Joe Borelli and have repeatedly
voted against queer rights legislation.
In 2016, for example, Matteo
and Borelli both rejected a city bill
requiring single-occupancy bathrooms
to be designated as genderneutral,
and in 2018 they opposed
a measure allowing folks to update
the gender designation on their birth
certifi cates. Like Castorina, Borelli
also voted against GENDA when he
was in the State Assembly.
In fact, Carr — who will be the lone
out Republican to join the City Council
— is no stranger to these lawmakers.
He serves as Matteo’s chief of
staff and previously worked in that
same role for Borelli when he was a
member of the State Assembly.
Carr’s political platform is largely
consistent with many others in
his party. Billing himself as a “law
and order Republican,” Carr has
POLITICS
expressed opposition to vaccine
mandates and “non-citizen voting,”
campaigned with Republican
mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa,
and was backed by politicians like
Borelli and GOP Assemblymember
Michael Reilly — a former cop
who strongly opposed a legislative
effort aimed at eliminating a
discriminatory loitering law commonly
known as a ban on “walking
while trans” because of the
way it was used to target transgender
women of color.
Carr cruised to victory in the
general election after eking out a
win in a much tighter GOP primary
competition earlier this year when
he won by just 44 votes in a rankedchoice
format. He trailed Republican
Marko Kepi after the fi rst round
of ranked-choice votes, but closed
the gap in the subsequent rounds
to pull off a narrow victory.
The Log Cabin Republicans, a
group of LGBTQ Republicans who
became embroiled in internal strife
during the Trump era, supported
Carr and campaigned for him to
boost his candidacy ahead of the
election.
In an interview with the Staten Island
Advance, Carr downplayed the
signifi cance of becoming the fi rst
out city lawmaker in his borough.
“I’m proud of who I am, but my
being among the fi rst gay Republicans
elected to public offi ce in New
York State is only a good thing if it
brings us closer to the day when
identity politics no longer matters
and the focus is where it should
be, which is on how well a candidate
will do the job of serving their
community,” Carr told the Staten
Island Advance.
Carr joins six other out members
of the incoming City Council —
Erik Bottcher and Kristin Richardson
Jordan of Manhattan; Crystal
Hudson and Chi Ossé of Brooklyn;
and Lynn Schulman and Tiffany
Cabán of Queens — leaving the
Bronx as the only borough without
LGBTQ representation in the City
Council.
Carr did not respond to Gay City
News’ request for comment for this
story.
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