Calif. bill would create annual Ronald Reagan Day

The Associated Press had this item today:

(Sacramento, Calif.) AP – California is one step closer to establishing an annual day honoring Ronald Reagan, the former president, governor and actor.

The state Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a bill designating Feb. 6 as Ronald Reagan Day. It encourages schools to spend the day commemorating Reagan’s life and accomplishments.

The legislation, which heads to the Assembly, is one of three Reagan-themed bills Republican lawmakers hope to pass before Feb. 6, 2011. That would have been the 100th birthday of the conservative icon, who died in 2004.

Ronald Reagan Day would be the third special day of recognition in California dedicated to an individual.

The first honors conservationist John Muir. Last year, lawmakers honored Harvey Milk, a gay activist and former San Francisco supervisor who was gunned down at city hall in 1978.

***

That’s what the AP had to say. This is from an old article up on SF Gate [1]:

A significant source of Reagan’s support came from the newly identified religious right and the Moral Majority, a political-action group founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. AIDS became the tool, and gay men the target, for the politics of fear, hate and discrimination. Falwell said “AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals.” Reagan’s communications director Pat Buchanan argued that AIDS is “nature’s revenge on gay men.”

With each passing month, death and suffering increased at a frightening rate. Scientists, researchers and health care professionals at every level expressed the need for funding. The response of the Reagan administration was indifference.

By Feb. 1, 1983, 1,025 AIDS cases were reported, and at least 394 had died in the United States. Reagan said nothing. On April 23, 1984, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced 4,177 reported cases in America and 1,807 deaths. In San Francisco, the health department reported more than 500 cases. Again, Reagan said nothing. That same year, 1984, the Democratic National Convention convened in San Francisco. Hoping to focus attention on the need for AIDS research, education and treatment, more than 100,000 sympathizers marched from the Castro to Moscone Center.

What do you think, readers? Should gay and lesbian Californinans be fighting this bill the way that others fought the Harvey Milk bill? Or was Reagan such an important president that it should stand?

[1] http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-06-08/opinion/17428849_1_aids-in-san-francisco-aids-research-education-cases

The few, the proud, the gay Republicans?

Now that Iowa has come out of the closet, it’s a no-brainer that gay Republicans would launch a new political organization.

That’s right, it’s called GOProud, and it promises a traditional conservative agenda (except for being, uh, homosexual, I presume). Some of those agenda issues are to repeal inheritance taxes, fight against global extremists, and defend gun rights.

Sounds like, say, Ronald Reagan would feel quite at home in this group if he was, well, gay, and, well, alive.

See The few, the proud, the gay Republicans?

Gary Post Tribune * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/few-proud-gay…

Archbishop of Canterbury accused of creating confusion in the church

The Rt Rev John Chane, the Bishop of Washington, has criticised Dr Rowan Williams’s handling of the crisis over gay clergy in the Church.

In a letter to his clergy, he claims that the archbishop has encouraged conservatives who are determined to destroy the Anglican Church by listening to their demands for a breakaway province.

Dr Williams last week met with the primates of Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, who boycotted this summer’s Lambeth Conference and instead held their own conference, called Gafcon, which proposed the creation of a rival global network of traditionalists.

They have supported moves to set up a new Church in America opposed to gay clergy and led by the deposed bishop of Pittsburgh, Bob Duncan.

“It would be folly for the Archbishop to even consider recognising a non-geographical province because it would unleash chaos in the Communion, with theological minorities in every jurisdiction seeking to affiliate with likeminded Anglicans in other provinces,” said Bishop Chane.

“Unfortunately, the Archbishop has contributed to the confusion and anxiety the leaders of the proposed province have sought to foster by meeting on numerous occasions with [Bob] Duncan and his allies.

“These meetings have bestowed an unwarranted sense of legitimacy on those who seek to deconstruct the Anglican Communion.”

His comments represent the first attack from the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church in the US since the Lambeth Conference, which achieved an uneasy truce in the battle over homosexuality.

The bishop, who is one of the leading figures in the US Church and conducted the funeral of Ronald Reagan, said that the plan to create a 39th province was an attempt to undermine the current leadership.

He added: [It] is a rejection of the respectful diversity and generous orthodoxy that defines the Communion. It flies in the very face of what it truly means to be an Anglican.”

See Archbishop of Canterbury accused of creating confusion in the church
Telegraph.co.uk