Op-ed: The Gay Tth About Ronald Reagan

Contents:

• ADAPTED OM SECRET CITY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON BY JAM KIRCHICK. PUBLISHED BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. COPYRIGHT © 2022 BY JAM KIRCHICK. ALL RIGHTS RERVED.
• OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN
• WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY
• THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS
• THE ULTRANSERVATIVE BROTHERS PULLED STRGS REAGAN’S WASHGTON. THEN ONE OF THEM WAS OUTED AS GAY
• SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS
• HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY RIGHTS

ADAPTED OM SECRET CITY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON BY JAM KIRCHICK. PUBLISHED BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. COPYRIGHT © 2022 BY JAM KIRCHICK. ALL RIGHTS RERVED.

It was 3:15 on the morng of June 26, 1980, and Congrsman Bob Livgston was extraordarily dnk, hidg the ngrsnal gym beneath the Rayburn Hoe Office Buildg, petrified that a team of highly traed right-wg homosexual assasss workg on behalf of Ronald Reagan was about to kill him.

This acunt of the alleged “homosexual rg” that ntrolled Ronald Reagan, and the efforts to expose on the eve of the 1980 Republin Natnal Conventn that nomated him for the princy, is piled om terviews wh several of the survivg participants and documents unvered the papers of former Washgton Post Executive Edor Ben Bradlee. “That stuff, ” or what Kemp adviser Ju Wanniski termed “the homosexual thg, ” had dogged the upstate New York ngrsman and former profsnal football player sce the fall of 1967, when the syndited newspaper lumnists Drew Pearson and Jack Anrson published a piece lkg Kemp to a “homosexual rg” operatg wh Reagan’s gubernatorial office. ” The “slanr” and “old lumny” that the virile ex-football pro and father of four might be gay, journalists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak wrote at the time, was a “vic nard, ” the sort of “poisono” “garbage” one found “submerged the polil sewers” and other “gutter munitns” that “not only do gross jtice to their victims but also mean and pollute mocratic ernment.

OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN

” After hearg om Bt, McCloskey agreed that a Kemp nomatn would revive the 1967 “Sndal Sacramento, ” possibly leadg to revelatns about the other homosexuals Reagan’s orb and thereby imperilg the GOP ticket. An Eisenhower-era executive orr barrg gay people om holdg feral ernment jobs (on the grounds that they were supposedly more sceptible to blackmail) had led to a purge of thoands of workers, and while the civil service lifted s ban 1975, gays were still prohibed om holdg secury clearanc (a rtrictn that would not be lifted until 1995). Livgston’s md began to procs the jumble of thgs he had seen and heard over the past few weeks: the long-standg mors about Kemp; the supposed gay work encirclg Reagan; McCloskey’s ntact who claimed that he, too, had been h on by gay Reagan; Bouchey’s ti to var Lat Amerin juntas and paraari.

” He “has the pacy to ‘h’ people both Lat Ameri and here” the Uned Stat, and he “dited to me durg the eveng that Kemp was certaly a participant homosexual nduct and that he thought possible Reagan was also. When Bill Bt first told McCloskey back 1976 about the homosexual advanc ma to him by the two Reagan ais, he had given McCloskey and four other people sealed envelop ntag a statement about one of those enunters.

Over the urse of the followg week, McCloskey typed up everythg he knew about the trigu ncerng the prumptive Republin printial nomee — the 1967 “homosexual rg” sndal Sacramento, the repeated sexual importung of Bill Bt by var Reagan ais, Bob Livgston’s dramatic pe om a dread homosexual h squad — to a two-part, 13-page, 33-pot nfintial memorandum. “Count me out until someone on this list [of alleged homosexuals] is actually servg a printial admistratn wh accs to natnal secury rmatn or until a more current pattern of some group is evint, ” Armstrong nclud.

WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY

While gay sex might still have been illegal most Amerin stat at the time, and gay people officially remaed “secury risks, ” was hard to see how any of the alleged activy volvg the Reagan ais threatened the public tst.

THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS

The prence of a closeted homosexual, Peter Hannaford, a potential Reagan admistratn uld pose a threat to natnal secury, McCloskey believed, and so he took his ncerns directly to Reagan’s longtime adviser and mpaign chief of staff, Ed Mee. “Wh the growg numbers and polil volvement of the homosexual muni across the natn, ” a velopment McCloskey weled, “ would be my judgment that there will be very few secrets about who has and who has not engaged homosexual nduct.

While he did not “specifilly” rell the meetg wh McCloskey, “the implitn that Pete [Hannaford] had anythg to do wh homosexualy is absolutely false, and the reason, if I said [he was not jog the admistratn] at the time was that there was no pot gog to bee Pete wasn’t gog to the admistratn anyway. In light of this rerd, his last-dch effort to torpedo Ronald Reagan wh a tale portrayg him as the dupe of a right-wg homosexual nspiracy looks like jt another episo a reer spent tiltg at wdls — his unlikely iend John Ehrlichman scribed him as “a latter-day Don Quixote” — though one much ls honorable than challengg Richard Nixon for the princy.

For as difficult as might be to image today, when an openly gay man n mount a ser mpaign for the princy and gay people have never been more visible Amerin public life, there was only one offense that rivaled murrg a member of the oppose sex, and that was lovg a member of the same one. This narrative was further rerced recently the HBO film The Normal Heart, which Reagan is basilly held personally acuntable for the lack of progrs fightg the disease durg his picture that people like to pat of Reagan the LGBT muny is that he was a ferocly antigay zealot who believed that AIDS was a punishment brought down by God upon the gay muny. I know I'm gog to be torn apart by many of the rears of this article, nsirg that I am a young gay progrsive Democrat who wouldn't ordarily e to the fense of a nservative Republin, but ultimately the ntext matters.

THE ULTRANSERVATIVE BROTHERS PULLED STRGS REAGAN’S WASHGTON. THEN ONE OF THEM WAS OUTED AS GAY

Whatever his mistak were when me to HIV and AIDS, she suggts that the former print kept a live-and-let-live attu when me to gay people, le wh the broar pro-eedom prcipl he poed for father once said that Reagan was "the most thentic man" he'd ever met and that "he didn't have a mean-spired bone his body. Dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by crics, the legislatn would mandate that “classroom stctn by school personnel or third parti on sexual orientatn or genr inty may not occur krgarten through gra 3 or a manner that is not age appropriate or velopmentally appropriate for stunts acrdance wh state standards.

”By permtg parents to sue school districts that fail to enforce s vague provisns, the act would effectively bar classroom discsn and dividual exprsn on a wi range of subjects not necsarily limed to homosexualy and genr inty. Gay stunts and the children of same-sex upl, for stance, would likely be hibed om talkg about their liv, and teachers uld face the wrath of angry parents simply for discsg historil events volvg gay people, such as the adly 2016 attack on a gay nightclub bill’s proponents sist that the measure has nothg to do wh harmg the digny of gay dividuals but rather is aimed at ensurg age-appropriate sexual tn. Ten years later, the Rsian Duma unanimoly passed legislatn “for the purpose of protectg children om rmatn advotg for a nial of tradnal fay valu” prohibg the dissematn of “propaganda” of nontradnal sexual Asenc-Rhe/Tampa Bay Tim, via Associated PrsWhile brandg gay people as child molters has been a staple of right-wg rhetoric around the world, there has long existed a stra of Amerin libertarian nservatism that ems the legal enshrement of such prejudic as an vasn of privacy and a dangero enhancement of state power.

The measure was part of a natnal backlash agast the advancement of gay rights that began the prev year wh a mpaign by the Florida Cs Commissn spokwoman and gospel sger Ana Bryant to repeal an ordance Miami’s Da County that prohibed discrimatn on the basis of sexual orientatn.

SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS

A Field poll published September 1978 found 61 percent of California voters supported banng gay teachers, a figure nsistent wh natnal proponents of Proposn 6 lookg at what seemed like an unobstcted path to victory, those opposn wonred what one of the state’s most popular Republins, s former ernor Ronald Reagan, thought about the measure. Reagan’s own language: “Anarchy, ” he told the former ernor, who had ed that word to scribe mp unrt at Berkeley, would be unleashed classrooms statewi as stunts lodged spur charg of homosexualy agast their teachers.

” He ma a more substantive se his syndited lumn published a week before the electn, refutg the claim that gays had a greater propensy to be child molters and the nard that they joed the teachg profsn to rec imprsnable Electn Day, voters rejected Proposn 6, 58 percent to 42 percent, a nearly exact reversal of what the polls dited jt two months earlier.

Reagan monstrated regard to gay teachers was sorely lackg durg his princy, when he spent years ignorg the AIDS crisis, refg even to mentn the name of the disease killg thoands of gay men until his send Ms.

HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY RIGHTS

Bryant’s nox Save Our Children mpaign of the late 1970s, today’s effort at stigmatizg gay people fds popular backg, wh some 51 percent of Amerins supportg laws to ban classroom discsns of sexual orientatn.

But moral panics, by fn, eventually lose their steam, and Republins of nscience should not let the passns of the moment overwhelm their stated mments to dividual rights, personal privacy and limed Kirchick is the thor of the forthg book “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton. Twelve days before Reagan was elected print November, 1980, Christians for Reagan, a supposedly pennt lobby anized to pture the fundamentalist vote for the Republin nomee, announced that would pay for a barrage of advertisements throughout the South, which attacked Print Carter for “terg” to homosexuals. By far the most fluential gay man the Reagan ner circle was Robert Gray, an extremely succsful Washgton public relatns man who had been a closeted pal player ever sce he had served as Dwight Eisenhower’s appotments secretary.

Homophobia led many cisn makers to disunt the AIDS epimic, partly bee they didn’t re much about those who were sick, and partly bee they believed that as long as they were straight, they themselv would never have to worry about .