The Huffington Post ran this cut from the NY Times from 8/4/2001:
For the past two months Rudolph Giuliani has been coming home at night to one of the happiest marriages in New York.
That’s how long the mayor, in flight from his own marital wreckage at Gracie Mansion, has been a frequent sleepover guest at the home of Howard Koeppel and his partner, Mark Hsiao. Mr. Koeppel, who is 64, is a Queens car dealer who has been both a close friend and prodigious fund-raiser of Mr. Giuliani’s since 1989. The 41-year-old Mr. Hsiao is a Juilliard-trained pianist who works at the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs. They’ve been together almost 10 years — are registered with the city as domestic partners — and in happier times for the Giuliani marriage, double-dated with the mayor and Donna Hanover on New Year’s Eve. Now they are doting hosts to Mr. Giuliani as he juggles his raucous divorce, his recovery from prostate cancer treatments, his waning months in office, his romance with Judith Nathan, his post-public-life future and, last but hardly least, his search for an affordable Manhattan apartment rental of his own.
The mayor’s progressive record on gay civil rights notwithstanding, he has not endorsed same-sex marriage. But, says Mr. Koeppel, ”He did tell us that if they ever legalized gay marriages, we would be the first one he would do.” Mr. Koeppel and Mr. Hsiao are in favor of the right to marry — which, among other things, would give gay couples the same protections as heterosexual couples in legal and fiscal matters ranging from immigration and adoption rights to veterans’ and Social Security benefits.
Now just this weekend Rudy told the Family Values Conference that he was opposed to Gay Marriage and would push for a Constitutional Amendment banning it.
It’s hard for me to imagine the things based on special group causes that folks want to make part of a great document like the Constitution. Oh, it was tried once before in Prohibition when one social group wanted to control what people drank… albeit a practice that goes down in human history for centuries. By doing it they caused crime and disruption and, eventually, it had to be removed… it was just NOT a Constitutional item.
Frankly, I don’t want anything dealing with ANY kind of sexual relationships as part of the Constitution. Nor do I want it to specify the kinds of clothes we can wear (something Mao did to the Chinese masses!). I don’t want it telling me what kinds of pets I can have. I don’t want it specifying my religious beliefs.
The Constitution is supposed to set down the basis of our human rights and the structure of the government that operates our country from day to day. That’s it. We didn’t need King George the Third telling us what to believe and how to do things. We don’t need Tony Perkins or his ilk, either.
As for Rudy Giuliani… either he was lying before or he’s lying now. Either way, he is not my idea of a President.
