Carl Paladino says he's 'not a homophobic'

As GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino and Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo got ready to walk down Fifth Avenue in the Columbus Day Parade, Paladino spent most of Monday morning on the defensive over comments he made about gays to a group of 50 rabbis in Williamsburg Sunday.

"My children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family," Paladino said in his speech Sunday, adding: "And I don't want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option. It isn't."

But a text of the speech distributed before those remarks included a statement Paladino did not deliver: "There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual."

On "Good Morning America" Monday Paladino told George Stephanopoulos: "My remarks I dictated to a person who . . . who put that in there. My first reading of it was really quickly in the car just as we were getting out and I saw that remark and I crossed it out. Off my sheets. And, uh, I got inside and I read my remarks and then, afterward, uh . . . uh . . . Somebody in the rabbinical group, uh . . . uh, distributed it. Distributed that what had . . . had originally been prepared. It was crossed off. And I refused to say it. Because it's not true, it's not the way I feel about things."

Paladino began the interview with Stephanopoulos by saying of Cuomo: "You know, at first he called me an anti-semitic. Now he wants to call me a homophobic . . . I'm not a homophobic. I have no reservations whatsoever about gays. Only, except for marriage."

Paladino said he and his wife had "stumbled on" a Gay Pride Parade once in Canada and, he said: "It wasn't pretty." As he told Stephanopoulos: "I certainly wouldn't let my young children see that."

Paladino also said during an appearance on the "Today" show that it wasn't "normal" for Cuomo to take his daughters to the New York City Gay Pride Parade.

"I don't think it's proper to watch a couple of grown men grind against each other," Paladino said.

Paladino's speech drew the condemnation of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization.

In a prepared statement released Monday, the Washington, D.C., organization said: "By his own words, Carl Paladino has made himself the poster boy for the kind of divisive leadership that makes young LGBT people question their self-worth and gives license to those who use violence to advance their hate."

Paladino's comments cameafter a month when a Rutgers student killed himself after fellow students allegedly secretly videoed - and broadcast - footage of him having sex with another man, a robbery and attack on men at the Stonewall bar in the Village and a hate crime in the Bronx that targeted three gay men.

Stephanopoulos asked Paladino if he would concede that "the comments you made [Sunday] could be seen as insensitive and in the light that they've come in the same weekend where you've had the biggest anti-gay hate crime in the history of New York City?"

Paladino said no.

"I think my comments were directed at . . . at just the . . . the confusion that people have had over this issue. I wanted to clearly distinguish that my feelings about homosexuality were no different from those of the Catholic Church. I'm a Catholic. I have 7.5 million Catholics in the state of New York. I wanted to make it clear what my position was and I think I clearly defined it.

The Human Rights Campaign said in its statement: "It's disgusting to think that Carl Paladino's idea of celebrating the eve of National Coming Out Day is to tell young LGBT people that they're not equally valid.

"There is nothing to be proud of in giving voice to the kind of diviseness that so often leads to violence."