Ronald Reagan’s son may just expressed his fervent opposition to same-sex marriagein an editorial, but his sister has a much different view. So, evidently, would his father.
Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis, 60, tells The New York Times that her father — who had a checkered history with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community during his presidency — would have supported marriage equality and “been puzzled” by the opposition to same-sex marriage…at least this is the conclusion drawn in today’s Huffington Post.
“Davis cited Reagan’s “distate for government intrusion into private lives,” as well as his Hollywood connections and close friendship with a lesbian couple that his children affectionately referred to as their aunts as reasons she believed her father would have been in favor of gay marriage, according to writer Sheryl Gay Stolberg.
“Reagan “did not believe that gayness was a choice,” Davis noted, but added, “as a straight man and an old-fashioned man, it’s not like he understood it.” She went on to note, “All I know is the heart of the man who raised me as my father.” Davis, who recently penned the e-book Till Human Voices Wake Us which focuses on a lesbian relationship, re-iterated her views in an interview with Howard Bragman ofGwist TV.
“Acknowledging that the former U.S. president was “late in addressing the AIDS issue,” she told Bragman, “I don’t think he would’ve stand in the way of [gay marriage] at all…I don’t think he think he would stand in the way of two people wanting to make a commitment to one another.” No word on how brother Michael Reagan will respond. In an op-ed for The Ironton Tribune, he suggested the Supreme Court’s ultimate ruling on the constitutionality of California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, will have a profound effect on the U.S. at large.