Giuliani Aligns
Himself With Catholic Church on Gay Issues

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, appearing on Meet the Press Sunday, explained that he doesn't believe being gay is a sin, but he said that, heterosexual or homosexual, "it's the various acts that people perform that are sinful." Giuliani, who signed domestic-partner legislation into law in 1998 when he was mayor of New York, has been consistently angling toward more conservative positions on gay issues to appease socially conservative Republicans. He has said he would appoint "strict constructionist" judges in the vein of justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court and has indicated he doesn't support civil unions if they are the equivalent of marriage.

An excerpt from Giuliani's appearance is below, and the full transcript is available here.

TIM RUSSERT: 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?

RUDY GIULIANI: 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...

MR. RUSSERT: But you don't believe homosexuality is aberrant...

MR. GIULIANI: Oh, no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: Unnatural or sinful.

MR. GIULIANI: 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. (The Advocate)