New York City Mayor de Blasio’s wife has rejected the results of a public vote calling for a statue of Mother Cabrini (pictured), a Catholic saint, and instead opted to honor other “women,” including two drag queens.
Chirlane McCray, the mayor’s wife, launched a “She Built NYC” program and invited the public to vote on the names of women they want the city to recognize with a statue. Mother Cabrini got more votes than any other woman (219), yet McCray’s panel rejected the public’s choice.
Without explanation, McCray decided on a group of people that were nowhere near the top choices picked by New Yorkers, including the two drag queens who founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR).
The “She Built NYC” project began last summer as an attempt by McCray to balance the male-female mix of statues of eminent New Yorkers. When McCray asked for the public’s input, she received an avalanche of more than 1,800 suggestions, with some 320 women nominated.
McCray and former Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen basically ignored the results of the public consultation and chose the seven women they wanted to honor, none of whom was among the top seven women picked in the poll.
Instead, they selected abortion rights activist Dr. Helen Rodriguez Trías and drag queens Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, among others, making clear what their criteria were.
The reaction from New Yorkers has been predictably swift and fierce.
“Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, who received more nominations from New Yorkers than any other woman during the process, has been completely ignored,” Councilman Justin Brannan wrote to McCray’s office on Monday.
“My simple question is this: why open this for a public vote and then ignore the results?” he asked.
The faithful of Saint Frances Cabrini church in Bensonhurst were “very disappointed” after learning she would not figure among the seven women chosen, said Father Guy Sbordone, pastor of the parish.
“People were a little taken aback, and rightfully so,” he said. “They’re thinking about their vote and what it meant and why it isn’t being honored.”
Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini — America’s first saint and the patroness of immigrants — was herself an Italian immigrant who became a naturalized citizen. And arguably she did more than any other woman of her day to help the immigrant community in the United States.
So essentially, these woke Democrats who love to invoke America’s immigrant heritage have snubbed a central figure who helped make that immigrant heritage a success by creating schools, hospitals, and orphanages to care for the new arrivals.