The Devil IS in the Details!

This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant

The misspeak by Senator Clinton about the Reagan’s support of AIDS in the 80’s prompted me to fire off a scathing post on Facebook about how Nancy and President Reagan really handled the epidemic during their Administration. You could say that my post “demonized” the Reagans. The reason I took it down is because after more research, I learned that what I wrote was not a completely fair representation of history. Yes, Nancy and Ronald Reagan did not speak out and speak up about the disease in the way necessary for it to be part of the national conversation. Yes, the Administration did too little too late to stop the spread of AIDS and support medical research to treat it. But, no, neither was as callous and uncaring as some accounts, including the HBO film, The Normal Heart, would have us believe. An Op-Ed published in The Advocate (a gay-oriented publication) by James Duke Mason on June 5, 2014, acknowledged what I mentioned above, but also stated that Reagan “wasn’t the devil that many make him out to be.” In fact, Reagan was one of the first major politicians in history to come out for gay rights, Mason writes, through his forceful opposition to Proposition 6 in California, which would’ve barred gay people from teaching in public schools. And, he used “nature over nurture” or environment when arguing why gay teachers would have no influence over students. In addition, Reagan is frequently accused for not mentioning AIDS publicly until 1987. “He didn’t make a formal speech on AIDS until then, but had actually declared in a 1985 press conference that AIDS was ‘a top priority’ and that there was ‘no question about the seriousness,’” according to Mason. And, Reagan was criticized for funding cuts, but the editorial points out that “more than $5 billion was appropriated” for AIDS research. Not enough, but definitely more than doing nothing. Patti Davis, the Reagan’s daughter, said in an interview with Huffington Post’s Michelangelo Signorile, on April 17, 2013, that her parents had close gay friends in California and Washington, that she and her brother, Ron, were often babysat by a lesbian couple. She even offered that she believed that her Dad would have supported and her Mom did support marriage equality. So, if not the Reagans’ personal beliefs or inclinations, where’s the “demon” I so aggressively sought? It’s not that simple, there were likely multiple “demons” in play. Certainly, the Reagans lacked the courage of their personal convictions and stances pre-White House. But, also, they trusted people around them, their advisors, to know what needed to be brought to the fore and how. This is a reasonable thing for a president to do. If you read transcripts from early White House press conferences, you will be horrified to learn how AIDS was dismissed with mockery and jokes. And, if Press Secretary Larry Speakes was any indication of the attitude of the Reagan advisors, it’s amazing anything was said or done in support of AIDS research and prevention. Lesson learned: truth is rarely obvious and neither are the devils!