About a year before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Rudy Giuliani donned a wig and a dress so he could squeal with girlish delight when real estate mogul Donald Trump nuzzled his fake breasts. It was a harmless comedy sketch for the charity dinner of the Inner Circle of City Hall, a press club for New York City reporters. But the mayor's antics spoke directly to his notable comfort with all things gender-bending and socially liberal. A few months later, after his estranged second wife, Donna Hanover, kicked him out of the mayor's residence, he moved in with two close friends, a wealthy gay couple. According to one of the men, Howard Koeppel, Giuliani even agreed to marry the men "if they ever legalize gay marriage."
As mayor, Giuliani marched in gay pride parades, and after he left office he continued to keep up relations with the community, even penning a 2002 letter to one gay group to commemorate the "triumph" of the 1969 Stonewall riots, when the New York gay community fought back against a police raid of a Greenwich Village gay bar.
Since becoming a presidential candidate, however, Giuliani has tried to distance himself from his socially liberal past. On the stump, he now emphasizes his opposition to same-sex marriage, though he also opposes a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, putting him in the same camp as most of the Democratic presidential candidates. In April, his campaign came out against New Hampshire's civil union law, even though Giuliani says he continues to support domestic partnerships that give gay and lesbian couples legal rights similar to those of marriage. Giuliani has dodged the issue of gays in the military, by saying "now isn't the time" to revisit the policy, given the war in Iraq. He pushed for a hate-crimes law in New York to punish crimes motivated by homophobia, but he has dodged questions about his support for the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA. As for the Supreme Court, Giuliani says he plans to appoint judges to the Supreme Court in the mold of Antonin Scalia, who wrote a famous dissent arguing that the government should have the right to prosecute sodomy between consenting adults.
As mayor, Giuliani marched in gay pride parades, and after he left office he continued to keep up relations with the community, even penning a 2002 letter to one gay group to commemorate the "triumph" of the 1969 Stonewall riots, when the New York gay community fought back against a police raid of a Greenwich Village gay bar.
Since becoming a presidential candidate, however, Giuliani has tried to distance himself from his socially liberal past. On the stump, he now emphasizes his opposition to same-sex marriage, though he also opposes a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, putting him in the same camp as most of the Democratic presidential candidates. In April, his campaign came out against New Hampshire's civil union law, even though Giuliani says he continues to support domestic partnerships that give gay and lesbian couples legal rights similar to those of marriage. Giuliani has dodged the issue of gays in the military, by saying "now isn't the time" to revisit the policy, given the war in Iraq. He pushed for a hate-crimes law in New York to punish crimes motivated by homophobia, but he has dodged questions about his support for the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA. As for the Supreme Court, Giuliani says he plans to appoint judges to the Supreme Court in the mold of Antonin Scalia, who wrote a famous dissent arguing that the government should have the right to prosecute sodomy between consenting adults.
The specific issues aside, Giuliani's candidacy is seen by religious conservatives as a direct threat. Were Giuliani to win the nomination, many conservative Christian leaders, including Focus on the Family president James Dobson, have promised to withhold their support, suggesting the potential defection of many of the "values voters" so crucial to GOP victories.
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