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Chris Pizzello/Associated PressPatti Davis in 2004. She says her father would have supported same-sex marriage. |
None of us know for certain whether President Ronald Wilson Reagan would have supported marriage equality. In the world of politics public opinion is often the prime mover of such things. It shouldn't be.
I would like to believe Patti Davis is right. If conservatives accept her belief that her father would have supported marriage equality perhaps it will be easier for them to accept that doing so is, in fact, the right thing to do.
For those who truly respect the rights of all to live their life in such a way as to secure their own happiness, which is to embrace individual liberty, the acceptance of marriage equality should be a no brainier.
Note: The preceding reference to individual liberty is not meant to imply anything goes without respect to civil society and the restraints required to maintain civil order.
Justice, to be realized means affording the same civil rights to all individuals across the board without regard to ones race, national heritage, gender, sexual preference, physical or mental disability, or anything else that righty falls under the umbrella of individual liberty and the proper exercise thereof.
The New York Times As Republican politicians wrestle with same-sex marriage, the daughter of a party icon — former President Ronald Reagan — said in an interview this week that she believes her father would have “been puzzled” by the political fuss and would have supported marriage for gay people.
Patti Davis, a Los Angeles writer and the onetime rebellious daughter of Reagan and his second wife, Nancy, said in a telephone interview that she never discussed same-sex marriage with the former president, who died in 2004 just as it was emerging as a political issue.
But Ms. Davis, now 60, offered several reasons her father, who would have been 102 this year, would have bucked his party on the issue: his distaste for government intrusion into private lives, his Hollywood acting career and close friendship with a lesbian couple who once cared for Ms. Davis and her younger brother Ron while their parents were on a Hawaiian vacation — and slept in the Reagans’ king-size bed.
“I grew up in this era where your parents’ friends were all called aunt and uncle,” Ms. Davis said. “And then I had an aunt and an aunt. We saw them on holidays and other times.” She added, “We never talked about it, but I just understood that they were a couple.”
Once when she and her father were watching a Rock Hudson movie, Ms. Davis said, she remarked that the actor “looked weird” kissing his female co-star. She said her father explained that Mr. Hudson “would rather be kissing a man,” and conveyed, without using the words homosexual or gay, the idea that “some men are born wanting to love another man.” Years later, in 1985, Mr. Hudson died of AIDS.
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Mr. Reagan had a mixed record on gay rights. As president, he infuriated many gay people with his slow response to the AIDS epidemic, but as governor of California he joined a number of Democrats, including President Jimmy Carter, in opposing a ballot measure that would have barred gays and lesbians from working in public schools.
Ms. Davis said her father “did not believe that gayness was a choice,” although “as a straight man and an old-fashioned man, it’s not like he understood it.”
Ms. Davis’s comments are certain to inflame conservative admirers of her father. {Read More}
Via: Memeorandum
