(*and this disclaimer that this post is my own and not that of Bodies Like Ours)

Sunday, June 6, 2004


A Letter to My Best Friend, Steven Powsner On the Death of Former President Ronald Reagan

Matt Foreman, Executive Director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

June 6, 2004

Dear Steven,

I so much wish you were here today to tell me what to do. You would know if it's right to comment on the death of former President Reagan, or if I should just let pass the endless paeans to his greatness. But you're not here. The policies of the Reagan administration saw to that.

Yes, Steven, I do feel for the family and friends of the former President. The death of a loved one is always a profoundly sad occasion, and Mr. Reagan was loved by many. I have tremendous empathy and respect for Mrs. Reagan, who lovingly cared for him through excruciating years of Alzheimer's.

Sorry, Steven, but even on this day I'm not able to set aside the shaking anger I feel over Reagan's non-response to the AIDS epidemic or for the continuing anti-gay legacy of his administration. Is it personal? Of course. AIDS was first reported in 1981, but President Reagan could not bring himself to address the plague until March 31, 1987, at which time there were 60,000 reported cases of full-blown AIDS and 30,000 deaths. I remember that day, Steven - you were staying round-the-clock in Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital caring for your dying partner of over 15 years, Bruce Cooper. It was another 41 days of utter agony for both of you before Bruce died. During those years of White House silence and inaction, how many other dear friends did we see sicken and die hideous deaths?

Is it personal? Yes, Steven. I know for a fact that you would be alive today if the Reagan administration had mounted even a tepid response to the epidemic. If protease inhibitors been available in July of 1995 instead of December, you'd still be here.

I wouldn't feel so angry if the Reagan administration's failing was due to ignorance or bureaucratic ineptitude. No, Steven, we knew then it was deliberate. The government's response was dictated by the grip of evangelical Christian conservatives who saw gay people as sinners and AIDS as God's well-deserved punishment. Remember? The White House Director of Communications, Patrick Buchanan, once argued in print that AIDS is nature's revenge on gay men. Reagan's Secretary of Education, William Bennett, and his domestic policy adviser, Gary Bauer, made sure that science (and basic tenets of Christianity, for that matter) never got in the way of politics or what they saw as "God's" work.

Even so, I think I could let go of this anger if this was just another overwhelmingly sad chapter in our nation's past. It is not. Steven, can you believe that the unholy pact President Reagan and the Republican Party entered with the forces of religious intolerance have not weakened, but grown exponentially stronger? Can you believe that the U.S. government is still bowing to right wing extremists and fighting condom distribution and explicit HIV education, even while AIDS is killing millions across the world? Or that "devout" Christians have forced the scrapping of AIDS prevention programs targeted at HIV-negative gay and bisexual men in favor of bulls*** "abstinence only until marriage" initiatives? Or the shameless duplicity of these same forces seeking to forever outlaw even the hope of marriage for gay people? Or that Reagan stalwarts like Buchanan, Bennett and Bauer are still grinding their homophobic axes?

No, Steven, I do not presume to judge Ronald Reagan's soul or heart. He may very well have been a nice guy. In fact, I don't think that Reagan hated gay people -- I'm sure some of his and Nancy's best friends were gay. But I do know that the Reagan administration's policies on AIDS and anything gay-related resulted - and continue to result - in despair and death.

Oh, Steven, how much I wish so much you were here.

Matt

(On November 20, 1995, Steven Powsner, died of complications from AIDS at age 40. He had been President of the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center from 1992-1994.)

__________________
Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is. --Margaret Mitchell

(it's probably a result of listening to the lovefest all weekend)

Dear President Raygun,

Something tells me you might be getting yourself a good tan right now. 30,000+ AIDS victims were probably there with St. Peter at the gate and they likely didn't need Thurgood Marshall to declare a winner.

The thousands who died on 9/11 in an attack orchestrated by a man you thought would be a good person to fund with money and guns since he was fighting the big bad commies you hated so much may even have had a say.

And let's not forget the victims of the Nicaraguan "freedom fighters" you and your disgraceful crony Ollie North financed with an elaborate guns for money scheme along with the Ayatollah Khomeni. If you don't recall, these drug cartels who you armed' killed an estimated 20,000 people all while your partner led her "Just Say No" campaign. I'm sure the Ayatollah was nicely tanned when he laid down the welcome mat last Saturday for you, Gip. Don't forget to bake a birthday cake with him for the disgrace of marine Mr. North when he finds his way to your crib as a welcoming present. It's only fair afterall since Mr North was kind enough to sneak into Iran with one for him while you were busy figuring out that Iran/Costra scheme of yours. It's funny that none of the commentators gushing over you this past weekend bothered to mention that you suddenly became a backer of Saddam Hussein when your little guns for money pipeline was uncovered.

President Raygun, if that isn't enough of a welcome mat for you, perhaps you can take a little trip back into time and revisit the American cities that fell into horrible decay and increased crime while you laughed off social programs. And your so-called family values? Why, even your own kids made known their disdain for you and you never could be bothered by your grandchildren.You probably weren't aware of much these past few years, but your son Ron, Jr. is a decent liberal commentator that can carry his own against those who worship you and the Hollywood fantasies you perpetuated on the American people.

There's lots more to bid your overdue death with, but since your successor's little boy GW has closed the books on your presidential records when congress tried to open them, we'll likely never know everything.

Ronnie, I hope your next journey is fruitful and a tad bit more rooted in reality instead of Hollywood than your last one. Maybe you can send a little sign to Jimmy Carter for having your aides steal his briefing book before one of the debates in 1980 to earn some points or send a note to the hostages held by the Ayatollah you sold guns to so you could ensure their release on your first inauguration day in 1981.

PS...I'm aching to know...did you try out your little Freudian slip, "Facts are stupid things" on St. Peter at the gate by repeating it?

__________________
Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is. --Margaret Mitchell

Hi Betsy,

Thanks for sharing your thougths. Not everyone remembers Raygun fondly. As our local television station showed the moment of silence for the former president at the local baseball game, they could not suppress showing the "black power" salutes of our hometown Oakland fans.

Peter

I will not speak of Reagan nor the family members....but I will speak of what many in the Conservative Right are doing with his demise, including Pres. Bush. Using Reagan's historical persona as a platform to further their agenda by claiming him as the "gold standard" of a conservative Republican, who upheld "American values" and redefined morality and traditional American way of life. These people ( TVC and related "tribes") will have "annointed" him as an American Martyr. This event will represent a rallying point for these people, watch and see; fueling the "righteous" to continue with increased vitality to "march forward" with their holy (cultural) war.

I recall a friend in college who was furious with Reagan - but for his gutting of school lunch programs. (Remember the whole 'tomato is a vegetable' concept?) She called him a murderer for it. I remember being surprised at her venom over a seemingly innocuous topic, but she had a small daughter at the time, so I'm sure it was more urgent for her than me.

I was working in the defense industry at the peak of the cold war under Reagan, and everything was focused on the Soviet menace. One system I worked on was explicitly designed to operate in typical conditions in West Germany. No one would listen to addressing smaller, sneakier possible enemies; and so we are ill prepared to deal with roadside bombs and other reasons our sons and daughters are coming home in shiny steel boxes.

Reagan embodied a black-and-white approach to politics. His views had been formed and resolved decades before he got into office, so his conviction was real. Unfortunately, he saw the world through a very narrow viewpoint.

/stepping off soapbox

Little gem from the film Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America :

__________________
Cheers,
Meresa

There will be no second-class citizens in this society.
-- Chuck Panozzo