Rubén Díaz Sr.

Rubén Díaz (born April 22, 1943) is a Puerto Rican politician from New York City and an ordained Pentecostal minister.

Born and raised in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, Díaz served in the United States Army beginning in 1960, ultimately obtaining an honorable discharge three years later.

He moved to New York City in 1965.

Also in 1965, Díaz pleaded guilty to marijuana and heroin possession charges and was sentenced to probation.

Díaz became an evangelical Christian in 1966.

He earned a Bachelor's Degree from Lehman College in 1976.

Díaz formed a senior center, Christian Community in Action, in 1977.

In 1978, he became an ordained minister of the Church of God, which describes itself as evangelical and pentecostal.

In 1993, Díaz was appointed to serve on New York City's Civilian Complaint Review Board.

In 1994, while on the Civilian Complaint Review Board, Díaz was critical of the city hosting the Gay Games, claiming that doing so would lead to an increase in AIDS cases and to wider acceptance of homosexuality by young people.

Díaz wrote that hosting the Games would lead children "to conclude that if there are so many gay and lesbian athletes then there is nothing wrong, nor any risks involved."

Other members of the Board condemned Díaz's comments.

Diaz was first elected to the New York City Council in 2001.

He was elected to the New York State Senate the following year.

In 2002, Diaz was elected to the New York State Senate.

A member of the Democratic Party, Díaz represented the 32nd district in the New York State Senate from 2003 to 2017; his Senate district included parts of the Bronx neighborhoods of Castle Hill, Parkchester, Morrisania, Hunts Point, Melrose, Longwood, and Soundview.

A socially conservative Democrat, Díaz is known for his outspoken opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

He represented the 32nd district in the New York State Senate from 2003 to 2017; his Senate district included parts of the Bronx neighborhoods of Castle Hill, Parkchester, Morrisania, Hunts Point, Melrose, Longwood, and Soundview.

In 2007, Díaz expressed anger at Governor Eliot Spitzer after Spitzer reversed course and abandoned his plan to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain New York driver's licenses.

Díaz said he had been betrayed by Spitzer.

Díaz was one of three Democratic Senators, known as the "Gang of Three", who threatened to abandon the Democratic majority elected to the New York State Senate on November 4, 2008.

A fourth, Senator-elect Hiram Monserrate, backed out of the group in early November.

According to a memorandum leaked to the New York Times in December 2008, the remaining "Gang of Three" tried to use their leverage to have one of them named Senate Majority Leader and another named chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and to obtain a guarantee that the Senate would not vote on the issue of same-sex marriage.

This deal fell through, and the three reached a compromise in which they recognized State Senator Malcolm Smith as Senate Majority Leader in January 2009.

In 2010, Díaz was challenged by Carlos "Charlie" Ramos in a Democratic primary campaign.

Díaz won the primary by a margin of 79% to 22%.

Ramos' campaign complained of a number of polling irregularities, including intimidation of voters, bringing campaign literature into polling sites, and expelling certified poll watchers who worked for Ramos.

Díaz is known for his "What You Should Know" column, which he began writing in 2012 and which began being published in 2016 in La Voz Internacional, a bilingual conservative online newspaper.

Díaz formed Christian Community Neighborhood Church; as of 2017, he remained a pastor of that church.

Díaz is the founder and president of the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization.

Díaz won the 2017 Democratic primary for the 16th district of the New York City Council with 42% of the vote.

In November 2017, Díaz was elected to the City Council in District 18.

He represented the 18th district of the New York City Council from 2018 to 2021.

Díaz created controversy in February 2019 after asserting that the City Council was "controlled by the homosexual community".

On February 13, 2019, the City Council voted to disband the Diaz-chaired Committee on For-Hire Vehicles, and Council Speaker Corey Johnson called for his resignation.

In April 2019, Díaz declared his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York's 15th congressional district.

In July 2020, Díaz announced that he would not seek re-election in 2021.

He was succeeded by Amanda Farías.

On June 23, 2020, he lost the Democratic primary, finishing third out of 12 candidates (behind victor Ritchie Torres and second-place finisher Michael Blake).

Díaz has taken prominent public positions against abortion and against embryonic stem cell research.