#A ridiculous litmus test for a Democratic mayoral debate

A Manhattan Democratic group that calls itself “NYC’s progressive LGBTQ Democratic club” is excluding the only LGBTQ candidate in the 2021 mayoral race from its debate — because its leadership dislikes her position on a single issue.

That’s right: The Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club blackballed Loree Sutton just because she notes that tolerance of protests such as Occupy City Hall undermines the public-health measures in place to battle the coronavirus, and says thinks protesters should get permits. Couldn’t that be … debated?

Club head Allen Roskoff invited six other candidates, including longshots, to what’ll be the race’s first debate, on Oct. 13 via Zoom.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first Veterans Services commissioner, Sutton is a retired brigadier general and Bronze Star holder who proposed to her wife, Laurie Leitch, at the 2015 pride parade.

Her exclusion from the debate is “outrageous, and it doesn’t comport with what I consider liberal Democratic values,” Sutton told The Post. “I’m the only gay candidate and I’m the only military veteran in the group, so I have to wonder: On what basis did Allen Roskoff determine who was acceptable for including?”

If Democrats insist on party-line litmus tests from the start of this race, they’re guaranteed to wind up with some idiotic progressive purist who winds up leading the city straight into the gutter. Oh, wait …