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A Letter on the Death of Ronald Regan
A Letter on the Death
of Ronald Reagan
by Matt Foreman
Editor's
Note: Matt Foreman wrote this letter on June 6, the day former President
Ronald Reagan died. Steven Powsner was Matt’s best friend until
he died on November 20, 1995, of complications from AIDS at age 40. Powsner
had been President of the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services
Center from 1992-1994.
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 into with the forces
of religious intolerance has 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 bullshit "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
Matt Foreman is the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force.