Was Ronald Reagan anti-gay? – Warren Throckmorton

Contents:

• RON JR. ON THE RERD: THE SON OF RONALD REAGAN BREAKS HIS SILENCE REGARDG THE WHISPER MPAIGN THAT HE IS GAY.
• OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN
• RONALD REAGAN FEARED SON WAS GAY WHEN HE BEME BALLET DANCER
• THIS IS WHY GAYS BLAME RONALD REAGAN FOR AIDS
• THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS
• 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.
• WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY
• WAS RONALD REAGAN ANTI-GAY?
• COLUMN: HOW 2.8 LN CALIFORNIA VOTERS NEARLY BANNED GAY TEACHERS OM PUBLIC SCHOOLS
• RONALD REAGAN WORRIED HIS SON WAS GAY

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. 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.

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. 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.

OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN

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. 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.

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.

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. In se you missed any of that, here’s a transcript of Whe Hoe spokman Larry Speak teractg wh reporter Lter Ksolvg, who is neher gay nor liberal. There were snickers om the right, but the prsure me om the left: Larry Kramer, one of the earlit and most proment AIDS activists, was one of the lour voic, sayg publicly that Ron was gay.

RONALD REAGAN FEARED SON WAS GAY WHEN HE BEME BALLET DANCER

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. 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. ” 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.

THIS IS WHY GAYS BLAME RONALD REAGAN FOR AIDS

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.

THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS

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. 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 .

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.

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. 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.

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. 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. While public attus have bee far more open, the suatn that someone is gay — whether te or not — remas a potent weapon (as elements of the mpaign agast North Carola Republin Rep.

WHEN REAGAN SAID 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.

WAS RONALD REAGAN ANTI-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. ” 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.

Behd those closed doors, McCloskey suggted strongly that the possibily of Kemp as a nng mate was proof that the “homosexual rg” around Reagan, long dismissed as mor, might be somethg all too real. Bt began llg him antilly to report that “homosexual people were very close to Reagan’s mpaign learship, ” that they were “nng” Reagan’s mpaign, and that “the suatn is absolutely out of ntrol. ” 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.

COLUMN: HOW 2.8 LN CALIFORNIA VOTERS NEARLY BANNED GAY TEACHERS OM PUBLIC SCHOOLS

” 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). “There is nothg herently wrong wh [homosexualy], ” McCloskey was later to wre, wh a veat, “ any office which do not have natnal secury rponsibili.

RONALD REAGAN WORRIED HIS SON WAS GAY

Over dner at The Palm, some five weeks after the exchange McCloskey’s office, Livgston apparently uld not get the salac stori volvg Kemp and the homosexual Reagan ais out of his md. 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.

Apprised of a clanste homosexual bal reachg all the way om Washgton to Sacramento, and om San Salvador to Santiago, Livgston had balked at s iatn r and th put himself grave danger. 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.