Rudy Giuliani gave conservative values a rubdown this weekend.
The Republican presidential candidate popped in to NBC's Meet The Press. As their alloted time came to a close, host Tim Russert raised the recent Huckabee AIDS stink and asked for Giuliani's reaction. The former New York mayor claimed not to have seen the callous quarantine comments. Russert then upped the stakes by asking if Giuliani, a man who signed domestic partnerships into NYC law, finds homosexuality to be "aberrant, unnatural or sinful".
Giuliani had a tough decision to make: how do you convince conservative voter that your not a queer lover, but remain political enough not to inflame the flamers. He may or may not have succeeded. Giuliani first roots his moral view in his Catholic upbringing. He then attempted to quells the queers by saying the way "somebody leads their life" is not sinful. Right wing and Evangelical ideology got some love, however, when he asserted, "It’s the acts, it’s the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the—not the orientation that they have." At least he didn't say "lifestyle".
Giuliani's love the sinner, hate the sin approach may actually appeal to values voters. And they'll probably appreciated his honesty when he reminded us all that he's sinned. We're not sure if he counts throwing the gays under the bus as one of his sins, but he should.
Here's the MSNBC provided transcript:
TR: Our remaining minutes with Rudy Giuliani.Mike Huckabee, leading the field in Iowa, told the Associated Press back in the ‘90s that AIDS patients should be quarantined and that “homosexuality was aberrant, unnatural and a sinful lifestyle.†What’s your reaction?
RG: My reaction is that I haven’t seen—on the second of that, I haven’t seen Mike’s comment. The first one I think he says that he didn’t have the information, that he’s changed his mind about it, it’s not his current position. Look, I got enough of my own statements and issues, as we’ve seen, that I have to deal with. I think Mike has to…
TR: But you don’t believe homosexuality is aberrant…
RG: Oh, no, no, no.
TR: …unnatural or sinful.
RG: My, my, my—no, I don’t believe it’s sinful. My, my moral views on this come from the, you know, from the Catholic Church, and I believe that homosexuality, heterosexuality as a, as a way that somebody leads their life is not—isn’t sinful. It’s the acts, it’s the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the—not the orientation that they have.
TR: The Congress is discussing and…
RG: Which includes me, by the way. I mean, you know, unfortunately, I’ve had my own sins that I’ve had to confess and had to deal with and try to overcome and so I’m very, very empathetic with people, and that we’re all, we’re all imperfect human beings struggling to, to try to be better.
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so gay people can fuck, as long as we confess our wrong later…
ahhh… the guilt-free guilt of Catholicism!
so BEING a homosexual is not a sin… just the ACT is – so then, without any alternative and through no fault of our own, we as homosexuals have to spend our entire life being alone and without a mate – completely contrary to the point god was trying to make in the Garden of Eden?
religion is grasping at straws by this point.
And not just the Act, either: I assume that oral sex is "sinful" in a gay context, but that Rudy would be unlikely to decline the mouthy favours of some female paramour–or his current wife, for that matter. So it's a thin, thin, line we walk.
It's interesting though– he doesn't say "gay acts" are sinful but condemns straight sex like sex with his (n)th wife (also contrary to Catholicism) as sinful
OK, I don't like the guy but: GREAT ANSWER. It's better than anything I've heard from Hillary or Obama. He says outright that homosexuality is not sinful in itself, that the act of sexual congress is inherently sinful, whether straight or gay, and that he himself is not a white better than any gay man.
I respect him for his beliefs, equally applied.
CAN WE GET RELIGION OUT OF FUCKING POLITICS?!?!?!
His answer is clearly hypocritical since heterosexual folks have a way to make their sex "sinless" – namely, marriage. But, according to his logic, we gay folks unfortunately must live alone without a sexual partner nor any kind of sexual release for our entire lives. Yup. Sounds Catholic to me! That strategy works SO well for their priests, now doesn't it?
There is good and there is bad but no such thing as sin. It's an idea made up by god people so that they can think they are better than others. Religions embrace the idea so they can continue to control people, make money and spew hate.
I didn't say it made sense. It makes sense to his altar boy outlook. And as for getting religion out of politics, agreed, but it was asked of him personally.
I have another idea: how about getting candidates' personal lives out of politics?
So true Gregg. I love how these 'moralists' state that homosexual acts and marriage will somehow degrade marriage, what liars especially Giuliani who had a mistress. These guys never hold themselves to the same standards that they use against gay people. There is nothing wrong with two consenting adults sharing an intimate moment. For Giuliani to say that gays are sinful shows that he is just an awful person and not fit for the presidency.
This is such a tired, politically manufactured argument. Hate the sin, not the sinner. It's the equivalent of saying, "I have no problem with who you are, so long as you hide the most fundamental part of yourself and pretend to be someone else for the rest of your life." Brilliant.