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A Letter on the Death of
Ronald Reagan

Editor's Note: Matt Foreman
wrote this letter on June 6, the day
former President Ronald Reagan
died. Steven Powsner was Matts
best friend until he died on
November 20, 1995, of complica-
tions from AIDS at age 40. '
Powsner had been President of the
New York City Lesbian and Gay
Community Services Center from

1 992-1 994.

car 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 admin-
istration saw to that.

Yes, Steven, I do feel for
the family and friends of the for-
mer 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 continu-
ing anti-gay legacy of his adminis-
tration, 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 4
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 fail-
ing was due to ignorance or
bureaucratic ineptitude. No,
Steven, we knew then it was delib-
erate. The government’s response
was dictated by the grip of evan-
gelical Christian conservatives
who saw gay people as sinners and

— AIDS as God’s well-deserved pun-

ishment. 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 chap-
ter 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 intoler-
ance has not weakened, but grown
exponentially stronger? Can you
believe that the U.S. government is
still bowing to right-wing extrem-
ists and fighting condom distribu-
tion and explicit HIV education,
even while AIDS is killing mil-
lions 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 mar-
riage” 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 pre-
sume 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 admin-
istration’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. 7

Matt Foreman is the executive ‘
director of the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force.

Constitution

cont'd from previous page

what defines the ‘sanctity’ of mar-
riage.

The core issue with gay-
marriage is our instinct to go against
those who are different from us.
Years of conditioning and behavior-
altering have helped us stop for the
most part discriminating because

skin color, theological beliefs, and

sex. However we still have the urge ‘

to push a group of people away from
us — it is arguably an instinct we
cannot easily abandon. However if
this 28th amendment is passed, it
will be the steppingstone for retum-
ing us to the time when the majority
controls everything, and all others
are second-class citizens.

Please remember this, we
are all part of a majority, and that

majority is the human race. It does-
n’t matter what color, religion, intel-
ligence, sex, or anything else; we are
all human. V

Taylor Pam is a Junior at South
Burlington High School, straight,
and sees no reason why someone
should be discriminated against
because of something as personal
and irrelevant as sexual orientation.

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