“There was the circle of their own private world, as clear as if it had been traced around them”.
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“She might not have been President of the United States but Ronald Reagan couldn’t have done what he did without her, so I think the public owes her a debt of gratitude”, said John Heubusch, Executive Director, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
Nancy Reagan’s children, Patti Davis and Ronald Prescott Reagan Jr., shared their reflections, as did their father’s former chief-of-staff James Baker. The service was full of hymns, Bible readings, and loving tributes.
The 94-year-old former First Lady died Sunday at her home in Los Angeles.
Clinton attended the Simi Valley, Calif., funeral in a first ladies’ delegation of Michelle Obama, Laura Bush and Rosalynn Carter.
“It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s”, Clinton said.
Clinton’s comments were shocking to many within and close to the LGBT community, as the Reagans are often blamed for ignoring or making light of the severity of the AIDS crisis.
The Reagan administration has been criticized for not taking the AIDS epidemic seriously.
“More than 20,000 Americans died before Ronald Reagan could bring himself to say the word “AIDS” in public – because it was a “gay plague” and Nancy and Ronald Reagan didn’t give a flying f– about sick and dying fa–s”, Savage wrote in an emotional blog post on The Stranger.
“While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS”, Clinton said in a statement.
This drew criticism on social media, including a tweet from Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, which has endorsed Clinton.
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“Thank God I’m not a single-issue voter, or she would have lost my vote with this insulting and farcical view of early AIDS history”, Peter Staley, an AIDS activist and founder of Treat Action Group, told Gawker. President Clinton was campaigning in IL on his wife’s behalf.
