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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 18, 2004)
June UL2QQ4 • Continued from Page J 3 the disease that’s frightening, not the people who have it.” The San Francisco Sunday The National Gay and Les Examiner and Chronicle bian Task Force’s Robert Brav reported that the PSA was wholly unimpressed. amounted to an apology for “We urge our leaders to take Reagan’s neglect of the epi action while thev hold positions demic while in office. Today, of power, not after thev reach numerous Web sites offer an the safety of retirement and are A ID S timeline that contains outside the spotlight of public the sentence, “ 1990: Ronald scrutiny,” he said. “Some will Reagan apologizes tor his salute Mr. Reagan for his post- neglect of the epidemic presidential words on AIDS. while he was president.” But for all the children alienat However, journalist ed from their schtxils because Andrew Miller said: “T hat’s a they had HIV, and all the fami lot of bullshit. Reagan said no MATH lies bombed out of their homes SUIttCt * BtflTH SllU Ct ® DIÄTH such thing. I was editor of. by hysterical neighbors, and all Outweek at the time.” the IV dmg users, black. His I I APftRTMItO In Fehniarv of that same panic and Asian people with year, Reagan visited children AIDS, and all the gav men who with AIDS at the University died alone in some anonvmous of California Medical Center hospital room, tor all these peo in Los Angeles. He said, “ I ple there was no editorial. hope my visit will bring more There was no PSA. There was San Francisco artist and political agitator Clinton Fein altered a photo from attention to the need to do no Great Communicator offer Reagan’s funeral service to sum up how some members of the queer and A ID S something about this horrible ing compassion or action. There communities feel about the Gipper’s reign disease.” was only presidential negligence On his way into the hospi and a legacy of shame.” tal, Reagan was confronted by A C T UP’s John our country that has claimed too many victims. The head of the Port land-based Cascade Fall, who screamed: “You are a murderer and a There have been too many funerals like his. AIDS Project also lamented Reagan’s inaction hypocrite. If you had done something eight There are too many patches in the quilt. We on the epidemic. years ago these children wouldn’t be dying.” owe it to Ryan to make sure that the fear and "Ronald Reagan is one of the reasons we Reagan also published a tribute to hemo ignorance that chased him from his home and still have an HIV epidemic in this country in philiac AIDS victim Ryan White in The Wash his school will be eliminated. We owe it to 2004,” executive director Thomas Bruner told ingtcm Post on April 11, 1990. Ryan to open our hearts and our minds to Just Out. “His failure of leadership on this issue “Sadly, Ryan’s is not the only life to have those with AIDS. We owe it to Ryan to be while president was Kith astonishing and been cut short by AIDS,” he wrote. “In a most compassionate, caring and tolerant toward unconscionable and continues to bear tragic poignant way, he told us of a health crisis in those with AIDS, their families and friends. It’s consequences today." j H F amily V alues W- n February 1989, ^ÊÊKhf¿y.. | author Larry A Kramer outed Presi- cent Ronald Reagan’s ^ f r ' . Ron on C N N ’s i t King show. < r_ " Hie irony is Nancy’s N '-t friends are gay and - <y "u it son Ron Reagan is s. ¡v the essence is that H < nia Id Reagan and R on Reagan Nancy Reagan have sold tlu-ir son down the river,” he said. “Ron Reagan 11 Id have been the biggest hero in the world if he had the courage to come forth and say he was gay, to shame and encourage his parents to !o something about this epidemic, but because he didn’t, more of us are dead." Confronted on his own television show by l uting inventor Michelangelo Signorile in 1991, Ron Reagan described himself as “straight.” He called the accusation “insulting to my wife of 11 years because it says she’s liv ing a lie, and I don’t like that.” Signorile responded that he’d heard Ron’s wife was a lesbian. In August 1992, Reagan daughter Patti Davis told The Advocate that her parents think homo sexuality is “abnormal. I certainly don’t think they feel that whatever someone’s sexual prefer ence is, is OK. They think that God made men and women to make love and any variation on that theme is in some way blasphemous.” — R W jn f § i - J ew el A . R o b in s o n , abr B ’ z il l io n D o l l a r P r o d u c e r Office 503.284.4040 Cell 503.708.9508 Jew el2U(§!teleportcom www.jeweIrobin8on.com (Sf (B (Afr Prudential Northwest Properties G a rd e n Fever! flfiTfUL ÎÜBÎ1ITUR4 y o u r re ùj/ié>or/too</ n u rse ry T^/ahfs, Too/s <£ (Çooct 3433 NE 24TH PORTLAND OR orfico AVENUE 97212 503.287.3200 (S Â o ri P o//*+*r 0 *r **r s 3630 SE Division St. Portland, Oregon (503) 230-2522 Custom Softs Choice o f 1005 o f fabrics!
