Rudy Giuliani’s about to have a flaming flashback! Gay group Empire State Pride Agenda has compiled an extensive collection of the Republican’s homo-loving past, including this footage of Giuliani at the non-profit’s 2001 fall dinner.
In addition to telling the crowd that the then-NYC mayor would appear on Queer As Folk to raise pro-gay dough, co-chair Jeff Soref reminds them that Giuliani spent some time in drag. Not a good look for social conservatives, to say the least.
The Washington Post dropped some virtual ink yesterday to point out some of Giuliani’s more glaring political flip-flops:
Another YouTube video shows the ceremony at New York’s munucipal [sic] building in 1998 when Giuliani, surrounded by the city’s gay activists, signed a sweeping domestic partnership law. The bill, Giuliani said, will “help to move society more in the direction of equal treatment for everyone. As mayor, Giuliani equated domestic partnership rights to rights for married people, [Pride Agenda honcho Alan] Van Capelle said. Giuliani was once in support of civil unions for gay couples, Van Capelle added. But in a statement to the New York Sun in April, following the passage of civil unions in New Hamsphire’s State Senate, Giuliani said he’s against anything that is “the equivalent of marriage.”
Cue crashing poll numbers.
WWH
As a life long Manhattanite, I love Rudy. (I know, I know, a bunch of you will attack me for liking a Republican). He’s just playing the game and veering to the right for the primaries. When push comes to shove later on he’d be the best of the Republicans for us. Let’s not forget that when he was divorcing Donna (or whomever) he moved in with a gay couple. He’s a northeastern liberal republican – better than a southern conservative democrat by a mile.
cjc
northeastern liberal republican: Why he’ll lose the primary. The GOP base is controlled by Southern conservatives.
Alan down in Florida
Sorry cjc but the Republican Party is controlled by middle-American and Rocky Mountain conservatives – not southern ones.
Dom
He’ll flame out faster than a drag queen on bad meth. What gets me is that he could have run as a moderate-to-liberal Republican, keeping the conservative economic bona fides and embracing liberal social views. He could have appealed to all the disenfranchised moderate Repubs and centrist and somewhat liberal Dems, basically telling the RW to go fuck themselves. It could have been a winning strategy, but instead he kisses Bush’s ass and supports every failed policy of this corrupt administration and the Republican party. When will these idiot politicians finally realize that the Internet is watching them, and is not going to let them escape from their past? Anything that a person says or does can be on the Web in about 5 minutes, so trying to lie about what you have said or done is impossible. It’s like they all still think it is 1953. Personally, I think Rudy is a goddamned liar, and I hope they waterboard the mother fucker, at least politically.
Gregg
Does anyone else think it’s fucked up that a gay group is trying to bring down a candidate by pointing out his PRO-gay attributes? Aren’t they helping skew the Repugs even farther away from our rights? Why should they do anything to help our cause if we’re going to then use it AGAINST them?
Unbelievable.
blackiemiko
Guiliani is just another Republican who is salivating at the mouth to add constitutional bans to the amendment and accept monies from the Saudis and Oil Companies for the war in the middle east. His gay support was what he needed at the time to win in NYC. Some say he is a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
Don’t forget the big issue, the US Supreme Court. 3 Judges are going to be retiring, do you, ask yourself want a Republican appointing judges, no matter how liberal this person is. They are going to be appointing judges to appease the right wing of the Republican party. We will loose many rights.
blackiemiko
Not unbelievable, because if come time for Rudy to stack the US Supreme Court, he is going to stack it against us whether we support him or not. Save yourself the trouble, vote for Democrats, as they are the only party that really cares about us.
Leland Frances
WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?????????!!!!!!!!!!!! There is nothing in the text of the piece by “Empire State NO LONGER HAS ANY PRIDE AGENDA” that proves that it’s a tricky attack on him. The case could also be made that they’re trying to attract gay voters FOR him!
“While as a candidate for President, Giuliani has distanced himself from most of his earlier positions on LGBT issues, the documents and video clips that follow portray the Rudy Giuliani that EARNED him the ‘pro-gay’ label he still carries with him today in his race for the U.S. Presidency.” Emphasis mine.
– http://www.prideagenda.org/campaigns/giuliani.html
For Christ’s sake, Giuliani hasn’t just “distanced himself,” he has slithered backwards like a two-headed snake at our expense SOLELY TO APPEAL TO THE FASCIST RELIGIOUS RIGHT!
But there is considerable evidence that it hasn’t worked. The American Taliban doesn’t need ESPA to convince them Rudy Luvs the Gays, and antigay/anti Giuliani hit pieces like Romney’s Iowa mailing that Queerty featured yesterday are just more nails in Giuliani’s political coffin. EXCEPT FOR the fact that gay CONSERVATIVES helped elect Bush TWICE [with as much as 25% of the self-identified LG vote]. Fag Repugs/just plain repugnant fags like WWH above are desperate to believe that Giuliani isn’t really as bad as he now says HIMSELF. Well, I got news for you, Mary: if Rudy uses fag bashing to get to the White House he’ll use fag bashing to get re-elected!
SO who the hell at ESPA is getting PAID UNDER THE TABLE for this by Giuliani’s campaign!!!!!?????
TODAY’s Rudy:
1. has said that he opposes New Hampshire’s recently passed domestic partner law because it is “too much like marriage.”
2. has said that he WOULD support an amendment ripping gays out of the US Constitution if “too many” judges rule in favor of marriage equality.
3. has said that DADTDP must NOT be overturned because out fags might hurt the war against terror.
Anyone who is naive enough to believe that someone at ESPA doesn’t have a SELF-SERVING agenda in sending this big bouquet of roses to Giuliani AS IF the old one still existed need only note that ESPA chose to DELETE the negatives that THEY included in their assessment of him shortly after he left office.
QUOTE:
“While New York City under Giuliani did implement a domestic partnership law that was far-reaching at the time it was enacted———[NOW ESPA claims “at the time (it) was the strongest such bill of its kind in the nation†even though San Francisco enacted theirs NINE YEARS before AND added the city contractors provision mention below a YEAR BEFORE NYC had any DP law at all]———the Giuliani years did see cities like San Francisco move ahead on several fronts in the rights and protections it offered to its LGBT residents. For instance, San Francisco has a contracting law that requires companies doing business with it to provide domestic partner benefits to their employees and also provides civil rights and workplace protections to transgendered persons. …
Bereavement Leave: In 1989 as candidate for Mayor, Giuliani criticized Mayor Koch’s plan to offer bereavement leave to gay city employees, calling it (through a spokesperson) “an ill-conceived political giveaway.â€
City Travel to Colorado: In 1993, he opposed Mayor Dinkins’ ban on travel by city employees to Colorado, imposed because of a boycott to the state’s antigay ballot initiative (later overturned).
Ruben Diaz: Soon after becoming Mayor in 1994, Giuliani supported Ruben Diaz, who sat on the Police Department’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, who wrote a homophobic and AIDS-phobic column about the upcoming Gay Games being held in the city. The Mayor was quoted as saying, “I don’t condemn him†and said Diaz’s views reflected “a couple of thousand years of moral theology.â€
DAS: Again in 1994, word circulated that the Department of AIDS Services might be eliminated and the rumor was reinforced when the Giuliani Administration held an evaluation process that was closed to public input and by invitation only. (DAS was not eliminated, but the incident furthered the distrust that already existed between LGBT community organizations and the Mayor.)
Office of Lesbian and Gay Concerns: Soon after becoming Mayor, Giuliani eliminated the Office of Lesbian and Gay Concerns as well as liaison offices to other communities.
Multicultural curriculum: Giuliani opposed the inclusion of lesbians and gay in multicultural curriculum.
Board of Education: He appointed openly homophobic Irene Impellizzeri to the Board of Education and appointed AIDS-phobic board member Ninfa Segarra as Deputy Mayor.
St. Patrick’s Parade: Giuliani participated in the parade and supported the Hibernian’s exclusion of ILGO.
Matthew Shepard: Giuliani defended the Need’s use of force to control demonstrators marching in honor of slain Matthew Shepard, furthering a perception among a number of communities in New York that the NYPD was becoming increasingly independent under Giuliani.” END QUOTE.
Please write ESPA’s Executive Director Alan Van Capelle and ask him what’s the inflation factor on 30 pieces of silver?
[email protected]
Gregg
Trust me, there is no way I am voting Repug. I just can’t understand the logic of using gay-POSITIVE past actions to bring down a current candidate.
Giuliani did a lot of fucked up shit – trying to ban art and crap like that. Why not focus on that and not hurt ourselves by taunting with gay-positive past actions? This kind of taunting makes it LESS likely that the Repugs will even start to move in a gay-positive direction, because they not only need to fear that bigoted conservatives will use it against them, but even fear that gay folks themselves will use it against them!
Gregg
and, if as Leland says, ESPA is doing this to ATTRACT gay voters for Giuliani – well – that is just too fucked up to even comprehend.
ProfessorVP
It’s what I call the “Girl with a Great Body But Ugly Face Law.” Not just Rudy, mind you, but Willard Romney and Hillary Clinton think we’re good enough to fuck, but not good enough for a relationship.
Miss Understood
He is NOT liberal. Liberals do not try to close museums over “dirty” paintings. He is a fascist. He is far worse than Bush because he’s not as stupid.
The fact that he socializes with gay people and then does not support their rights is even worse than if he was openly anitgay. It means you can never trust anything he says.
tristram
As much as some of us want to believe otherwise, the next President is going to be a Republican. So it’s a question of picking your poison. Give the choices, I’d take my chances with Rudy.
ProfessorVP
Let me amend that, tristram. If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, then yes, the next president is going to be a Republican. And if God Himself told Hillary she can’t win, she would still run.