Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images
Remember the gay couple who took in former mayor Rudy Giuliani after his previous marriage hit the skids? Giuliani is pretending he doesn't: First, he skipped the couple's 2009 Connecticut wedding, after RSVPing yes. Now, says car dealer Howard Koeppel, Giuliani has reneged on a promise to remarry Koeppel and Mark Hsiao in their home city of New York, where it's just become legal. Koeppel tells the Post that when he asked if the mayor would marry them years ago, the reply seemed, on balance, positive:
"He said, 'Howard, I don't ever do anything that's not legal. If it becomes legal in New York, you'll be one of the first ones I would marry.' "
Ten years later, Koeppel is distressed that his former house guest hasn't returned the many calls he began making before the legislation was passed last week.
"It seems like a lot of people he was close to become persona non grata," Koeppel observed.
The couple has been together since 1991, back when Giuliani was on wife No. 2, and this year became parents through surrogacy. The former mayor — despite generally moderate social positions, a longtime thumbs up to civil unions, and a certain reputation for not exactly treating heterosexual marriage as something uniquely sacred — has always opposed gay marriage. The issue has become much less of a wedge in recent elections, and young people especially, of all political affiliations, are completely unshocked at the notion of gay marriage; meanwhile, Giuliani has never been a favorite of social conservatives, but it's still hard not to read his duck-and-cover move as a nod in their direction. One consultant tells the Post that " [Presiding at the wedding] would be a sign he's no longer interested in running [as a Republican] for president — ever." But despite his seemingly annual feints at running for office again, it's unclear if there are large blocs of Republicans who are interested any longer in having Giuliani run for president — ever.
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