Recently in Rudy Giuliani Category

ABC News reports that Rudy Giuliani spoke to a Hispanic evangelical congregation this morning in Miami, apparently his first church visit of the race:

Saying that "faith can transform lives," Giuliani told parishioners that running for president of the United States "is a marathon, not a sprint. And in may ways it’s a test of strength and a test of faith. The Bible reminds us, Joshua 10:25, 'Fear not, be strong, and of good courage.' That is the way to face the future.”

(Giuliani, who is facing off against five major Republican challengers, did not quote from the next verse in Joshua, which describes Joshua smiting five kings, slaying them, and hanging them on five trees until the evening.)

“So I am not coming here to ask for your vote," Giuliani said. "This is not the right place. I am coming here to ask you of something, very special, very important: I am asking for your prayers.”

Three months ago, Giuliani might have thought that the greatest threats to his candidacy were former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., none of whom have been embraced en masse by conservative Christian voters.

But then came the Huckaboom. According to an Associated Press poll from the end of December, 54% of conservative evangelicals who attend church weekly switched their preference of candidate in November and 61 percent of the switchers moved to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a fellow evangelical and Baptist minister.

God-o-Meter is declining to raise Giuliani's reading only because it realizes he shouldn't have been as high as seven for so long.

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When God-o-Meter saw Rudy Giuliani sitting Mike Huckabee-like by a Christmas tree and donning a Huckabeesque red sweater in his new "Holiday Wishes" ad, it naturally thought Giuliani was copping a play from the former Arkansas Governor's playbook. But Giuliani spokesperson Maria Comella tells God-o-Meter that's not the case: "[The ad] was taped several weeks ago at the same time as several other ads. So it’s not inspired or in reaction to Huckabee’s spot." Unlike Huckabeee's Christmas spot, Giuliani's makes no explicit mention of Christ's birth and features no cross-like imagery. God-o-Meter is raising his rating anyway.

Sure, the socially moderate Rudy Giuliani has tweaked his social positions to appeal to religious conservatives. He's come out in support for parental notification laws on abortion and for the Hyde amendment, which bars federal funding of abortions. But God-o-Meter found this one hard to swallow: an enthusiastic supporter of gay rights, Giuliani suggested on last Sunday's Meet the Press that he thinks homosexual acts are sinful.

Here's the somewhat convoluted exchange between Russert and Giuliani, courtesy of The New York Times' Caucus blog:

Giuliani was asked... if he agreed with the statement made in 1992 by a rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Mike Huckabee, about homosexuality being “an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle.”

“No,” Mr. Giuliani replied. “I don’t believe it’s sinful.” But he then said something that puzzled and concerned some gay rights groups.

“My moral views on this come from the, you know, from the Catholic Church, and I believe that homosexuality, heterosexuality, as a way that somebody leads their life is not, isn’t sinful,” said Mr. Giuliani, who as New York mayor temporarily moved in with two gay roommates after he separated from his wife. “It’s the acts — it’s the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the orientation that they have.”

Mr. Giuliani added: “I’ve had my own sins that I’ve had to confess.”

The Times sought a clarification, but the Giuliani campaign declined. God-o-Meter can't help but wonder whether Giuliani misspoke or whether he really feels this way. And, if he does, whether he's told the gay couple the then-New York Mayor lived with when his divorce proceedings forced him from Gracie Mansion.

Does it strike anyone other than God-o-Meter as ironic that the Republican candidate most at odds with religious conservatives has a strict moral sensibility shaped by a serious Catholic upbringing? This week's Newsweek profile of Rudy Giuliani makes a few references to the role that 16 years of Catholic schooling played in informing Giuliani's authoritarian streak and his deferential relationship to the Roman Catholic Church:

Middle-class Catholic families sent their children to parochial schools if they could. Public school, as depicted in a popular 1955 movie, "The Blackboard Jungle," was a place where pupils had their lunch money stolen—or worse. At Catholic schools, students wore uniforms and stood when teachers entered the room, and they received daily religious instruction. Rudy won tuition-free admission to Bishop Loughlin Memorial, a fortress-like high school run with an iron hand by the Christian Brothers. When some students played the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie" at a school dance, one of the brothers smashed the record over his knee and announced, "We'll have none of that filth playing here."

Sophomore year, Giuliani's homeroom teacher was a Christian Brother named Jack O'Leary. Giuliani was more of a talker than a scholar. "I hit him once," O'Leary tells NEWSWEEK. "He was talking in class and unfortunately—the custom of the time, if someone was fooling around you gave him a whack—and that's what I did." Giuliani quieted down. About a year later, in the school auditorium, O'Leary ran into Giuliani's parents, who introduced themselves. "They said, 'Do you remember the time you hit him?' And I said, 'Yes I do'," O'Leary replied….

Corporal punishment was routine at Bishop Loughlin. Adolescent anarchy was a fearful thing; the Brothers beat it out of kids. Some students were afraid. "When you see someone picked up by the shirt and tie and punched in the face, or other teachers throwing chalk across the room—it was very scary," says Joseph Sicinski, who was Giuliani's classmate.

At Bishop Loughlin, Giuliani was a catechist, a student who instructed younger children in Catholic doctrine. Giuliani was not remarkably pious, but like many dutiful boys of his time and background, he seriously considered the priesthood. (He would later joke to friends that he gave up his priestly ambitions because "celibacy ain't for me.")….

Under the Christian Brothers' tutelage, Giuliani was exposed to the Christian Aristotelianism of Saint Thomas Aquinas. As writer John Judis recently noted in The New Republic, "Catholic thinkers do not see liberty as an end in itself, but as a means—a 'natural endowment'—by which to achieve the common good." Many years later, at a forum on crime, Giuliani said: "Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do." Asked to explain what he meant, Giuliani replied: "Authority protects freedom. Freedom can become anarchy." Judis notes that Norm Siegel, then executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said afterward that he was "floored" by Giuliani's definition of liberty and authority. "But anyone who studied philosophy at a Catholic college would not have been surprised by Giuliani's words," writes Judis.

Giuliani's moralism became increasingly strident in his second term as mayor. He was outraged at an art show at the Brooklyn Museum called "Sensation." The exhibits included a picture of a black Virgin Mary surrounded by bits of pornography and a pile of elephant dung. Giuliani ordered the museum to shut down the show or lose its city subsidy. He lost in the courts; the show went on. Yet he has stood by his boyhood friend, Msgr. Alan Placa, who was accused of, though never formally charged with, child molestation. (He denies the allegation.) The boy who had grown up with cops and hoods in his family was able to maintain a somewhat selective sense of right and wrong—one influenced by tribal ties.

Giuliani mentioned some formative Catholic experiences in his recent appearance at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. God-o-Meter wonders if if the ex-New York mayor, famously uncomfortable discussing his religion, will make more of his serious Catholic years as social conservatives continue to express skepticism toward him, helping fuel his slipping poll numbers in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

God-o-Meter has said it before. But it may have more political punch coming from Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, one of the most influential religious conservatives in Washington. In an op-ed in today's Politico, Perkins notes that there's a glaring disconnect between Rudy Giuliani's pro-choice stance and his strategy of assuaging social conservatives by promising to appoint "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court. If even Giuliani admists that a strict constructionist judge might decide to uphold Roe v. Wade, then where does that get him with the pro-life movement.

What you need to know from Perkins:

[Giuliani] is adamant that his public and oft-repeated language on judicial restraint is consistent with the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court who will uphold Roe and its progeny....

The most important thing a president can do is pick judges who are “strict constructionists.”

For us and for most Americans, those words mean that decisions like Roe cannot stand.

It is precisely on this point that Rudy Giuliani dissents, and it’s a fact that every "pro-life" American should know and that every "pro-life" commentator should frankly admit.

God-o-Meter wonders how long until Rudy's Republican rivals start making this same argument.