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Former Bronx councilman Fernando Cabrera has landed a role at City Hall after all – where the controversial pastor will serve as a senior faith adviser in the newly created Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnership.
Mayor Eric Adams confirmed the appointment in a Monday night statement shortly after Cabrera issued a lengthy mea culpa on Facebook for his past anti-gay remarks.
“Fernando Cabrera has acknowledged the pain that his past comments have caused and has apologized for the words he used,” Adams said in the statement announcing the hire. “I heard and accepted his apology.”
Cabrera, who serves as the pastor of New Life Outreach International Church, was initially a top contender to run the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health – formerly known as ThriveNYC, a source had told The Post.
But after intense pushback from the LGBTQ community, a City Hall spokesman earlier this month denied that Cabrera was being eyed for the first role.
Cabrera has taken heat for a 2014 YouTube video in which he praised the notoriously homophobic government of Uganda.
He cited those past comments in his apology and said at the time he “was unaware of the Ugandan government’s egregious treatment of the country’s LGBTQ+ population.”
“My remarks were made in the context of movement toward multi-party elections, but with limited information. I understand how these words caused some to believe that I condone and support the Ugandan government’s historic denial of their LGBTQ+ population’s civil and human rights, but nothing could be further from the truth,” he wrote.
The 57-year-old pol told The Post in 2019 that he personally opposed abortion and gay marriage, but respected the law of the land.
He took that position a step further in an op-ed in the Bronx Chronicle last year during his failed bid for Bronx borough president.
“I resoundingly support and respect the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage and respect the right of any New Yorker to marry whomever they love and choose to start a partnership with,” Cabrera wrote. “This issue is settled law of the land. Period.”
The Council’s LGBTQ Caucus railed against Cabrera’s faith adviser appointment.
“The man is a bigot … his appointment to a taxpayer-funded position is an affront to us as individuals and as a caucus, and would be an insult to the LGBTQ New Yorkers,” the group of lawmakers said.
Allen Roskoff, president of the Jim Owles Liberal LGBT Democratic Club, also trashed the appointment.
“The mayor is giving the LGBT community the middle finger and telling us we’re worthless by hiring Fernando Cabrera,” Roskoff said.
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