Rudy Giuliani is a lot of things � authoritarian creep comes to mind � but I don't believe he is a bigot. Still, he was very comfortable playing one in last night's panderfest, and that's nearly as disturbing.
When the subject of gay marriage came up, Giuliani began by spouting his usual boilerplate about "judicial activism," and if he'd left it at that, I would have said fine. But then he launched into some totally gratuitious fag-bashing. The transcript doesn't quite get across the obnoxious, schoolyard bully tone, or the glee beyond all that (LAUGHTER) and (APPLAUSE) from the audience:
I did 210 weddings when I was mayor of New York City. So I have experience doing this. They were all men and women.
(LAUGHTER)
I hope.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
You got to give me a little slack here. It was New York City, you know.
Back in 2001, during his divorce from Donna Hannover, Giuliani famously moved into a house with his close friends Howard Koeppel and Mark Hsiao, a gay couple. At the time, Koeppel (pictured here with the mayor) told the Advocate "If they would pass a law that marriage would become legal between same-sex couples, I would be the first in line. And if Rudy were still mayor, I know he'd perform the civil ceremony for me." In fact, Koeppel told Frank Rich that Giuliani had said as much.
Koeppel also said that he had "a pretty good perception of the difference between chicken salad and chickenshit" and that "Rudy is the chicken salad. He respects you as a person and not as a member of a group whose vote he's seeking." But now that Giuliani has thrown his old friends under the bus in search of votes from a different group of people, chickenshit sounds like exactly the right word.
