Did Giuliani privately endorse a marriage amendment?

October 21, 2007

Rudy Giuliani has a tough enough time dealing with abortion rights — he offers the convoluted pitch of being a pro-choice candidate who will oppose his own beliefs once in office — but he generally stays away from gay marriage altogether.

Privately, however, his pandering may have reached jaw-dropping levels.

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, told The Hill Saturday that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Perkins said Giuliani told him in a private meeting that if the Defense of Marriage Act appeared to be failing or if multiple states began to legalize same-sex marriages, then he would support the constitutional amendment.

Giuliani did not mention the amendment or the issue of gay marriage during his address to the Values Voters Summit, but that position could win him favor with some social conservatives who view the former mayor warily.

Perkins said that was not enough to assuage his concerns about Giuliani, but “it was nice to hear.”

If I’m not mistaken, that’s a pretty big deal, and Giuliani has vowed a policy position he’s been unwilling to take thus far. Indeed, just a few months ago, some were praising Giuliani for resisting the right-wing calls for an anti-gay constitutional amendment.

Maybe some enterprising political reporter might want to ask the former mayor if he actually told Tony Perkins that he would support such a measure. If so, it’s a rather dramatic shift to the far-right, and perhaps the most shameless example of pandering of the campaign season. If not, Giuliani and Perkins are clearly not on the same page.

Which is it?

For what it’s worth, if Giuliani really is now prepared to endorse a constitutional amendment on marriage, he’s opening himself up to a world of scrutiny that he might find uncomfortable.

We are, after all, talking about a thrice-married serial adulterer. He married his cousin. He told reporters about his second divorce before telling his own wife. He’s estranged from his children. He marched in a parade with his mistress. After one of his wives threw him out of his home for infidelity, he moved in with a gay couple.

And now Giuliani is so desperate to win over anti-gay Republicans that he’s privately endorsing a constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage?

Seriously?

My hunch is that Giuliani was just pandering, telling Perkins what he wanted to hear. But therein lies the potential for controversy — if Giuliani denies Perkins’ claim, he risks further angering the GOP base. If he confirms Perkins’ claim, he looks utterly ridiculous flip-flopping on a sensitive, vulnerable issue.

So, Mr. Mayor, what’s it going to be?

Of course he’s pandering. Other than jawboning, the POTUS has nothing to do with constitutional amendments. So what does it mean he supports one? Is he going to go state to state to campaign for it? No way. He’ll probably just say something along the lines that he supports it and the congress then states should ratify it. And I’m sure all of the moral authority Rudy possess will just fling that thing to ratification.

Any presidential candidate who talks about supporting constitutional amendments is just blowing smoke.

  • Why does this guy even want to be President? Can’t he be happy just constructing himself walk-in humidors and patronizing the women who are dazzled by his glamorous-ex-public-servant act?

  • In terms of temperament, judgment and want of integrity, Giuliani is probably the most dangerous serious presidential contender of my lifetime. He’s not a well man, and he would be almost unimaginably dangerous to the country and the world.

    But the one thing for which I always had some respect for him–not least because it was so at odds with his otherwise unblemished record of hate–was his acceptance of homosexuality and his personal friendship with gay individuals. (This is, of course, far more normal than not here in New York, but still a bit of a stretch for a hardcore Republican.) That he’s now willing to toss that away, even in private, for the support of a thoroughgoing creep like Tony “Psycho” Perkins, is just more proof that any sympathetic qualities Rudy showed in the past were just brief deviations from his dismal norm.

    This is beyond despicable, and I devoutly hope it ruins him.

  • Perkins said Giuliani told him in a private meeting that if the Defense of Marriage Act appeared to be failing or if multiple states began to legalize same-sex marriages, then he would support the constitutional amendment.

    Let me get this straight: If a particular social view becomes acceptable to too many people in the U.S., Giuliani would be in favor of suppressing it at the national level. That’s nuts. (We see this in federal drug laws, unfortunately, too.)

  • The Republicans’ Campaign ’08: The Flight from Sanity just keeps getting better and better.

    C’mon guys, just take the gloves off and support an amendment outlawing homosexuality. Show some stones and promise to prosecute abortion as murder. Don’t just say that America is a Christian nation, make it the law – you wimps. Let’s get on the high road to the Middle Ages!

  • Pandering?

    When you offer to deny a particular flavor of humanity some of their civil rights
    in exchange for votes… “pandering” doesn’t quite cut it.

    Is there a word for: Marketing yourself by appealing to the worst that is inside people?

    Really… there ought to be a Commandment that forbids that sort of thing.

  • Whores will say and do anything for enough money. Rotten Rudy is a nasty piece of work. Maybe he can join with Larry Craig and work to outlaw the gay community. They have enough in common along with no pride, dignity or honor.
    When I look at the people running this country, I see why we are sinking so quickly. The mindless have inherited the earth and are running us into total ruin.

  • A reporter should also ask Giuliani about the letter below, one he sent to a gay rights organization whose members honor the Stonewall riots of 1969, the symbolic beginning of the modern gay rights movement in America.

    One possible question might be, “Mr. Giuliani, how do you see keeping the spirit of the Stonewall Rebellion alive in today’s political environment?”

    You can find Stonewall site here: http://www.stonewallvets.org/RudyGiuliani.htm

    June 25, 2002

    Stonewall Veterans’ Association
    70-A Greenwich Ave.
    New York, NY 10011

    Dear Friends:

    I wish to extend my warmest congratulations to you on the occasion of the 33rd anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion. The work of the Stonewall Veterans’ Association keeps the spirit of the rebellion alive. The Rebellion was a triumph at a time when the struggle for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights was just beginning.

    Over the past several decades, S.V.A. has preserved the spirit of the original rebellion and continues to work tirelessly for the cause of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender and Human Rights in general. Your educational program is exceptional in helping others to learn about the cause, the history and to fight prejudice.

    Again, I would like to extend my congratulations and commend you on a job well done.

    Sincerely,

    Rudolph W. Giuliani

    My original post on this is here:
    http://thegiulianipapers.typepad.com/the_giuliani_papers/2007/08/giuliani-and-ga.html

  • “…So, Mr. Mayor, what’s it going to be?”

    You don’t really expect an answer to that question? Perkins just made it public to embarrass Guiliani because he knows Guiliani is lying and wanted everyone to see how badly he’s been pandering.
    The press will continue to withhold scrutiny on the Ghoul for God knows what reason, so he knows he can lie and exaggerate at will.

  • What’s it gonna be? Well, I would guess, business as usual.

    I can’t think of a candidate who has less authority or credibility on any kind of marriage than Giulani, and snort whenever I have to read that he’s a Roman Catholic. Wonder if the serial adulterer, and twice-divorced Rudy is offered communion…

    I can’t think of a field that is working as hard to out-pander each other as this one, and I have no doubt that Rudy would say or do anything to get elected. If he didn’t tell Perkins now that he would support an amendment banning gay marriage, you can be sure that he would have gotten there sooner or later.

    Even so, I have not read or heard coverage of the “Values Voter Summit” that did not frame this as “Rudy won just by showing up.” Seriously, that’s how it’s being framed.

    In some ways, I’m glad to see them all elbowing each other to be the candidate of religious fundamentalism – the less mainstream they are, the more they want to go back to the Stone Age, the easier it will be to make a statement in November, 2008 that this is a nation the respects the rights of all people to live and worship and believe as they choose, and understands that the government has no business legislating one group’s religious beliefs into the law of the land.

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