The Reagans, surround by discreet gays, still did ltle to help wh AIDS.

was reagan gay

Excerpted om The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life Ameri by Charl Kaiser.

Contents:

OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN

Ronald Reagan failed to succsfully bat the AIDS crisis, but do that make him antigay? * was reagan gay *

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.

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. 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.

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.

Des old spicns that Ronald Reagan was gay were substantiated recently wh the disvery of a stack of nearly 70-year-old love letters the attic of a home Rancho Mirage, California. "I bought this home about a year ago om some guy who claimed to be Errol Flynn's nephew,"  said Bter Hyman.  "I started… * was reagan gay *

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.

THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS

* was reagan gay *

“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.

RON JR. ON THE RERD: THE SON OF RONALD REAGAN BREAKS HIS SILENCE REGARDG THE WHISPER MPAIGN THAT HE IS GAY.

Free Onle Library: Ron Jr. on the rerd: the son of Ronald Reagan breaks his silence regardg the whisper mpaign that he is gay. by "The Advote (The natnal gay & lbian newsmagaze)"; News, opn and mentary * was reagan gay *

” 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.

” It was not until a boozy lunch wh a man claimg to have been a “long time Reagan associate, ” however, that Bt found what he believed to be the “smokg gun” provg that Reagan was ntrolled by homosexuals.

SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS

Homosexualy and Gay Rights. * was reagan gay *

” 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.

RONALD REAGAN FEARED SON WAS GAY WHEN HE BEME BALLET DANCER

In the 1970s the Republin Party tried to muzzle gay inty.  * was reagan 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.

HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY RIGHTS

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. Those close to Reagan claim that he didn’t share the strong homophobia of his social nservative alli — the Reagans, after all, weled the first gay uple to their private rince and as ernor, Reagan opposed a California iative to prohib gays and lbians om teachg public schools — but his refal to speak out about the HIV/AIDS epimic ntributed to the aths of thoands of Amerins and vastated the gay and lbian muny. Ined, Reagan — who durg his 1980 mpaign said that society nnot “ndone” the “alternative” gay “liftyle” — uld have chosen to end the homophobic rhetoric that flowed om his admistratn and most arnt supporters.

WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY

” “The poor homosexuals — they have clared war upon nature, and now nature is exactg an awful retributn, ” Buchanan wrote a 1983 op-ed for the New York Post, ncludg that homosexuals should not be permted to handle food and that the Democratic party’s cisn to hold their next nventn San Francis would leave legat’ spo and children at the mercy of “homosexuals who belong to a muny that is a mon rrier of dangero, munible and sometim fatal diseas. Everett Koop, Reagan’s surgeon general, later explaed that “trapartmental polics” kept Reagan out of all AIDS discsns for the first five years of the admistratn “bee transmissn of AIDS was unrstood to be primarily the homosexual populatn and those who abed traveno dgs.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* WAS REAGAN GAY

Homosexualy and Gay Rights | Ronald Reagan.

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