Daughter: Ronald Reagan Would Have Supported Gay Marriage

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The daughter of Ronald Reagan said Thursday that even though she never discussed the issue of gay marriage with her father, the former president would have supported it.

Patti Davis, a Los Angeles writer and former actress, recalled in an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday several experiences that would seem to suggest that the former Republican governor of California, at least in private, ultimately held a more progressive stance on the issue.

“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.

Davis added that Reagan, who is often criticized for his slow response to the 1980s AIDS epidemic, “did not believe that gayness was a choice,” however that “as a straight man and an old-fashioned man, it’s not like he understood it.”

Two Republicans have bucked their party on the issue in recent days. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), once on Mitt Romney’s shortlist for vice president in 2012, cited his gay son as the reason he evolved on the issue. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) also reversed his postion, citing in part, his stroke.

“Same-sex couples should have the right to civil marriage,” Kirk said in a statement. “Our time on this earth is limited, I know that better than most.  Life comes down to who you love and who loves you back– government has no place in the middle.”

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