/mods - note this is a press release, not copyrighted/
NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE MEDIA RELEASE - June 9, 2004
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-National Gay and Lesbian Task Force closes offices
on June 11th in memory of all those lost to AIDS-On June 6, George W. Bush announced a federal government closure and a national
day of mourning for former President Ronald Reagan on June 11 by saying in part:
"All executive departments, independent establishments, and other governmental
agencies shall be closed on June 11, 2004, as a mark of respect for Ronald
Reagan... I call on the American people to assemble on that day
Mourning] in their respective places of worship, there to pay homage to the
memory of President Reagan." (see full text of proclamation and executive order
on the Task Force Web site:
http://www.thetaskforce.org/news/release.cfm?releaseID=692)
The offices of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force will be closed on Friday,
June 11, 2004 in memory of all those we have lost to AIDS.
A Letter to My Best Friend, Steven Powsner on the Death of Former President Ronald Reagan
by 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 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
(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.)
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