Ritchie Torres, Democrat from Bronx, becomes first openly gay Congressman

Ritchie Torres of the Democratic Party has become the
first openly gay black man to be elected to the US Congress. Torres, a 32-year-old Afro-Latino, was elected to the
Congress from New York’s 15th Congressional District defeating
Republican Party’s Patrick Delices by a huge margin in the results announced on
Tuesday.

The district is considered to be the safest seat for Democratic
Party.

The son of a Puerto Rican father and an Afro-American mother,
Torres ran his campaign on the back of fighting poverty for the urban poor and
real estate reforms. He was earlier elected to the New York City Council seven
years back, and even then—as a 25-year-old– he was the first openly gay council
member to be elected from Bronx.

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According to a New Yorker article, when he decided to run
for the City Council in 2013, Torres was dealing with depression over his gay
identity. He had to hide his same-sex leaning during his early school life for fear
of violence.

Torres was born in public housing in New York and dropped out from
NYU to work for another politician. While working there as a key staffer,
he learned the ropes which helped him emerge as the solid politician he is now.

Even though he is a drop-out, he has the “vocabulary of a
professor” in his own words. He also harbours a deep suspicion of power, coming
from a less-privileged community, which is at the same time surrounded by rich. As he claimed, New York’s 15th District
in terms of median income is the nation’s poorest – and also it’s most unequal.

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“There’s no
place for idolatry in politics,” he had said in interview to The Observer in
2016. The publication in that article had touted him to be a likely future
Mayor of New York.

 “I’m inspired by Nietzsche. He wrote ‘Twilight of the Idols’ and was irreverent toward idols like Socrates, even
Jesus Christ… I have a deep suspicion of power,” Torres said.