Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for New York City mayor just hit another bump in the road, and this one might actually matter to Democratic voters. The socialist darling who’s been cruising toward what looks like a likely victory next month now finds himself tied to a second figure with a history of virulent anti-gay rhetoric.
While his terror-tied associations might not ruffle too many feathers among the city’s Democratic base, homophobia could be a different story entirely.
Earlier this month, the New York Post revealed that Mamdani “flashed a beaming smile in a cringeworthy photo with a top Ugandan official who pushed harsh anti-LGBT policies — that included life imprisonment for gay people.”
Mamdani met with Rebecca Kadaga in July during a break from the campaign trail — after winning the Democratic primary — that included a lavish celebration of his recent nuptials at a secluded Ugandan compound owned by his family.
“Delighted to meet with Zohran Mamdhani (sic), incoming Mayor of New York City. Good luck in the next phase of elections,” Kadaga said in a caption of a photo of her with a grinning Mamdani.
“Here with Zohran Mamdhani and Prof Mamdhani as Zohran returns to New York after his traditional wedding in Kampala,” she gushed in another photo of her, Mamdani and his father, Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani.
Mamdani claimed he had no idea who she was, but the New York Post quickly exposed that convenient memory lapse by revealing her connections to his family’s sprawling compound in Uganda. Awkward doesn’t begin to cover it.
Now comes round two, and this time the connection is to Siraj Wahhaj. As PJ Media previously reported, Wahhaj is an indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. While that’s apparently not the dealbreaker it should be, Wahhaj’s extensive record of inciting violence against gay people might be.
Wahhaj hasn’t been subtle about his views. He once urged his followers to intimidate members of the LGBT community into becoming straight and converting to Islam. During sermons that came to light in 2017, he repeatedly invoked violent, eliminationist rhetoric about murdering gay people. In one particularly chilling moment, he described homosexuality as “a disease of this society” and told his congregation to “defend against these homosexuals.”
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He made his position crystal clear when addressing the legal status of same-sex relationships in North America. “No matter how much the American government and the Canadian government legislated in their law that it is acceptable, it will never be acceptable by the Muslims,” Wahhaj declared. Then he went further, invoking what he claimed was Islamic law on the matter. “And you know brothers and sisters, you know what the punishment is if a man is found with another man? The Prophet Mohammad said the one who does it and the one whom it is done to, kill them both,” he told his followers without a hint of qualification or context.
This is who Mamdani has been associating with.
The timing couldn’t be worse for the socialist candidate, who is already facing questions about whether there’s a pattern emerging here. Two separate individuals with documented histories of extreme anti-gay positions, both connected to a man running to lead one of the biggest and most important cities in America. That’s not a coincidence voters can easily ignore.
The question hanging over his campaign now is whether Democratic voters will care enough to change their votes. In a city where LGBT rights are supposedly non-negotiable, Mamdani’s associations with people who’ve advocated for imprisoning and even executing gay people should be disqualifying for a far-left candidate. Whether it actually will be remains to be seen, but one thing’s certain: This isn’t the kind of pattern any mayoral candidate wants emerging a month before election day.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is still ongoing, and polls are now showing Americans are increasingly blaming the Democrats for this mess, but we can’t let them spin their way out of it.
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