{"id":1438,"date":"2004-06-11T13:31:44","date_gmt":"2004-06-11T17:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/06\/11\/reagans-legacy\/"},"modified":"2004-06-11T13:31:44","modified_gmt":"2004-06-11T17:31:44","slug":"reagans-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/06\/11\/reagans-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Reagan’s legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I have to admit that Reagan’s speechifying has almost always made me
\ntear up.  When at his finest rhetorical moments (the 1984
\nconvention, the speech before the Berlin Wall, the eulogy at the
\nChallenger <\/span>disaster, just to note a few), he had a near-unparalled
\nability to pull us along to the heights that he achieved in his
\nwords.  I think his only contemporary equals have probably been
\nMario Cuomo and Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n

My evaluation of Reagan is mixed, as the legacy of Reagan’s
\nadministration toward gay people reverberates even today.  From
\nTyler’s site<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Can you believe that the unholy pact President Reagan and the
\nRepublican Party entered with the forces of religious intolerance have
\nnot weakened, but grown exponentially stronger? Can you believe that
\nthe U.S. government is still bowing to right wing extremists and
\nfighting condom distribution and explicit HIV education, even while
\nAIDS is killing millions across the world? Or that ‘devout’ Christians
\nhave forced the scrapping of AIDS prevention programs targeted at
\nHIV-negative gay and bisexual men in favor of bullshit ‘abstinence only
\nuntil marriage’ initiatives? Or the shameless duplicity of these same
\nforces seeking to forever outlaw even the hope of marriage for gay
\npeople? Or that Reagan stalwarts like Buchanan, Bennett and Bauer are
\nstill grinding their homophobic axes?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Much angrier than I would put it, but full of truth.  I would add,
\nhowever, that the administration did nothing that didn’t have at least
\nthe tacit approval of the public at large.  AIDS was a scourge
\nbecause it did not — theoretically — affect “regular” people. 
\nAIDS advanced the push for gay rights further and faster than it
\nprobably would have without the plague.  But at what cost?<\/p>\n

Could Reagan have stopped the course of the pestilence?  Certainly
\nno more than he “ended” the Cold War?  But he could have had an
\ninfluence, he could have set a tone, he could have done something<\/span>.  But for doing nothing, he, like any of us, will have to answer.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Sen. Danforth reminds us at this moment that we celebrate, in
\na funeral, the light that darkness cannot overcome.  And there has
\nbeen much reminding those assembled that this is a religious service in
\na house of faith.  One of the tenets of the Christian faith lies
\nin confession, as a key to holiness.  The confession of sin in the
\nPrayer Book confesses to God “what we have done and what we have left
\nundone.”<\/p>\n

Did Reagan commit a moral wrong in the way he treated those afflicted
\nwith the scourge of the virus?  I think so.  But so did the
\ncountry.  And those actions are something we must all atone for,
\nand we must, in an effort to rectify the injustice that Ronald Reagan
\nand the country comitted, we have to continue to look for the justice
\nof mercy.<\/p>\n

On a completely separate note, Bill Clinton appears to be the only
\nperson at the funeral who gets into the music.  He always seems to
\nbe happy singing or listening to music, and he even sways a bit in time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have to admit that Reagan’s speechifying has almost always made me tear up.  When at his finest rhetorical moments (the 1984 convention, the speech before the Berlin Wall, the eulogy at the Challenger disaster, just to note a few), he had a near-unparalled ability to pull us along to the heights that he achieved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-nc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}