"Politically in Arizona, McCain should have done just the opposite," Giuliano said. "Instead, he came right to my defense. He's a loyal friend."

The 2000 Boston Globe piece attributed a fierce sense of loyalty to McCain, as a person who stuck to his guns, and with his friends, regardless of possible political consequences. Another openly gay friend of Senator McCain is former Arizona GOP Congressman Jim Kolbe, who recalled his coming-out experience in an endorsement he gave during the recent Republican National Convention in front of 150 gay and lesbian Republicans.

Kolbe, in 1996, had decided to come out to colleagues after being informed that his homosexuality was about to be made public. "I drew him aside after leaving a breakfast," he recalled. "I said that some personal information was about to come out that I need you to know about. He put up his hands and said, 'Jim, it doesn't make any difference' -- obviously, he already knew.

"He said, 'You're a great legislator today and you will be tomorrow. You're a friend today, and you will be tomorrow.' That really touched me and gave me encouragement to talk to other members of Congress."

Senator McCain's political positions and the Republican Party Platform may break with his loyalties to his gay friends, however. While McCain voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he has openly stated his belief that the institution of marriage is exclusively heterosexual. "It is only this definition," his campaign website reads, "that sufficiently recognizes the vital and unique role played by mothers and fathers in the raising of children, and the role of the family in shaping, stabilizing, and strengthening communities and our nation."

McCain is also a supporter of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, responsible for the discharges of about 12,500 gay, lesbian and bisexual servicemembers on the basis of their sexual orientation. "I believe polarization of personnel and breakdown of unit effectiveness is too high a price to pay for well-intentioned but misguided efforts to elevate the interests of a minority of homosexual service members above those of their units," McCain wrote in an April 2007 letter to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "Most importantly, the national security of the United States, not to mention the lives of our men and women in uniform, are put at grave risk by policies detrimental to the good order and discipline which so distinguish America's armed services...I remain opposed to the open expression of homosexuality in the U.S. military."

The Republican Party's platform, which McCain has signed off on, also directly calls homosexuality "incompatible with military service" and continues the push to amend the United States Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. "Because our children's future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage," the platform reads (see page 53), "we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives."

McCain, on the issue of gay families, told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he backed "family values" with intent to prop up two-parent, heterosexual families as the ideal. An adoptive father himself, McCain had told the New York Times on August 13 that he didn't believe in gays' right to adopt, since "both parents are important in the success of a family."

"He's completely out of touch," countered Kara Suffredini, public policy director for Family Equality Council. "There's no reason, except for the sake of red meat for his base, to throw up screens in the way of children in foster care getting homes."

"It is an insult to these professionals and the children whom they represent to suggest that the door should be closed to people other than a 'traditional' married couple," added Human Rights Campaign's Ellen Kahn.

The Log Cabin Republicans have also endorsed Senator McCain despite his less than concrete commitment to LGBT rights. "Certainly there's a loud and vocal segment of our party, among social conservatives, who are hostile to gay rights, " Log Cabin president Patrick Sammon told CNN, "but among rank-and-file Republicans I think there's much broader support for gay rights than people think."