Op-ed: The Gay Tth About Ronald Reagan

Contents:

• RON JR. ON THE RERD: THE SON OF RONALD REAGAN BREAKS HIS SILENCE REGARDG THE WHISPER MPAIGN THAT HE IS GAY.
• RONALD REAGAN FEARED SON WAS GAY WHEN HE BEME BALLET DANCER
• OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN
• THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS
• WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY
• 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.
• RONALD REAGAN WORRIED HIS SON WAS GAY
• HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY RIGHTS

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

Gay buzz has surround the reed-th son of former print Ronald Reagan sce he dropped out of Yale Universy his hman year 1976 to dance wh New York Cy's Jofey Ballet. It follows him still, even though he and his longtime wife, clil psychologist Dorta Reagan, appear to be happily married, ensnced Seattle wh their three typed as gay "has never bothered me, " says Reagan, 46, a polil mentator for MSNBC and dog show host for Animal Pla. " He plans to vote for John outspoken cric of Bh, Reagan ma headl July when he addrsed the Democratic Natnal Conventn support of feral fundg for stem cell is equally passnate about gay marriage.

Ronald Reagan feared his son was gay when he dropped out of Yale to bee a ballet dancerThe 40th print's son went on to marry wife Doria 1980, and the two are still together livg Seattle wh their ts Updated: 22:52 BST, 3 June 2014 It has been revealed that Ronald Reagan secretly feared his son was gay when the younger Ron dropped out of Yale 1976 to bee a ballet dancer. 'My dad ventured the opn that all people the arts might not be gay, but there wasn’t much he uld really say about this, and, of urse, we now know Ron’s not gay.

' Worri: Ronald Reagan (left) allegedly feared his son Ron (right) was gay when he dropped out of Yale 1976 to bee a ballet dancer.

RONALD REAGAN FEARED SON WAS GAY WHEN HE BEME BALLET DANCER

The Reagan admistratn was blamed for their slow rponse to the AIDs epimic, which pated the print as homophobic sce many believed his son was a closeted gay man. 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.

OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN

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. Ed Mee, Reagan's attorney general, has said that pictns of Reagan as antigay are "totally unfair and totally unreprentative of his views or anythg he ever said. " Reagan speechwrer Peter Robson said that "the notn that he was somehow llo or had a cel or cynil attu towards homosexuals or AIDS victims is jt ridiculo.

Bh, who 2004, regardls of however he may have felt about gays privately, ed his proposed marriage ban as a polil tool wng reelectn. Jt a year before he announced his ndidacy for print, he me out forcefully agast Proposn 6 California, which would've barred gay people om teachg public schools.

Before that statement, The Advote had lled out Reagan for referrg to gay people as "sick unfortunat" and for stallg repeal of antisodomy laws the state the early '70s. 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.

THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS

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.

The Reagans me om a Hollywood i that had always embraced discreet homosexuals; that was probably the reason for their ocsnal displays of enlightenment.

Bis Rock Hudson, Nancy Reagan’s gay iends clud the rator Ted Graber, who supervised a $1 ln renovatn of the fay quarters at the Whe Hoe. 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.

WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY

” In New York, the gay power broker Roy Cohn boasted of his fluence wh the Reagan Whe Hoe, and his law partner, Tom Bolan, beme head of the screeng mtee for feral judghips New York State. ” In some ways, Cohn was the ial gay iend for the Reagans, bee he was not only eply closeted but also publicly self-hatg.

Asked about the persistent mor that his ballet dancer son, Ron Jr., might be gay, the printial ndidate said 1980, “He’s all man—we ma sure of that. Steve Weisman, who vered Reagan’s first term as print for the New York Tim, thought the “Whe Hoe wasn’t that homophobic bee Nancy had iends who were gay. As a health tastrophe veloped at the begng of this admistratn, the lack of any openly gay officials Reagan’s entourage would have terrible nsequenc.

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.

In fact, the prence or absence of openly gay people would terme how almost every major Amerin stutn reacted to the greatt medil crisis of the . 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 .

The only real hero were a few scientists si the CDC, who lobbied early and often for more money to fight the epimic, and a very small group of ngrsmen om California and New York, cludg Philip Burton, Henry Waxman, and Ted Weiss, whose openly gay staff members nvced them to take the epimic serly. Bill Krs, a gay ai to Burton, and Tim Wtmoreland, the gay unsel to a Waxman health submtee, were particularly important soundg the alarm. In April 1982, Wtmoreland wrote a statement for Waxman to read which clared, “There is no doubt my md that if the same disease had appeared among Amerins of Norwegian scent, or among tennis players, rather than gay mal, the rpons of both the ernment and the medil tablishment would have been different.

RONALD REAGAN WORRIED HIS SON WAS GAY

Insi the Reagan admistratn—at the Whe Hoe, at the Office of Management and Budget, and wh the Department of Health and Human man Servic—there were no openly gay staffers, and therefore, very ltle will to attack the problem forcefully. Members of the Moral Majory believed that would be worse to scribe gay sex to young people than was to prive them of the rmatn they might require to stay healthy.

This attu was another ditn of the persistence of the myth that homosexualy was ntag—even though Reagan himself had publicly rejected that ia durg the battle over the Briggs amendment that would have banned gay teachers om California’s public schools. “Many people, pecially our youth, are not receivg rmatn that is val to their future health and well-beg bee of our reticence alg wh the subjects of sex, sexual practic and homosexualy, ” the surgeon general wrote.

HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY RIGHTS

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.