“FOR EVIL TO TRIUMPH, LET GOOD MEN DO NOTHING.”

I read the editorial “Confessions of an Ex-…” in the 9/30/2010 edition of Florida Agenda. During the Regan administration I was living in San Francisco. As AIDS appeared, and reached epidemic proportions, the reports in the daily press and conversations with friends became more and more personal as friends, colleagues and other people I knew kept getting sick and dying. Medical researchers in San Francisco and doctors did what they could but there was no help from Washington and no extra funding for the CDC or NIH.

Kindly ask Mr. Kecskemety if he was straight, uninformed, naive or just uninterested in what was going on at the time. During the entire Reagan administration, as friends were dying, his beloved President did absolutely nothing. Private research both here and in France were desperately looking for a cause and cure, but our President and his wealthy “kitchen cabinet” were not interested. The only gay people we saw in the White House were Nancy’s decorators and hairdressers. As a lifelong republican, maybe he can be excused for voting for Reagan the first time, but the 2nd time?

I realize that the gist of the editorial was the fact that his political direction has changed, but someone said “For evil to triumph, let good men do nothing.” He admits that he did more than do nothing. He actually voted for these anti-gay homophobic leaders. Everyone is entitled to their political beliefs, and supposedly his beliefs have changed. Personally, I’ll find other things to read besides the editorials in your publication. – JOEL COLBY

A “FORMER GAY DEMOCRAT”

I am Gay and I have spent nearly half a century as a thoughtless “liberal” gayclone, believing everything the gay ghetto and my labor union has told me. I have blamed the decimation of gay men dying of AIDS on Reagan, Bush, Cheney, Rove and Gingrich. I have dutifully voted Democratic in almost every election since John F. Kennedy. I have called for a “French Revolution” in America and preached the socialist gospel of European superiority to anybody who would listen. But I have changed! What brought about this change? In one word: Obama!

His taxpayer bailouts of the incompetent rich contradicted his beautiful rhetoric of condemning the rich when he campaigned for President. His healthcare reform is a farce and does not control costs for any age-group. His star has faded, his luster is diminished, just as millions of people have lost their homes and their employment. He blames Bush, but unemployment used to be almost half of what it is in today’s Obamaworld.

He has left us so deeply in debt that China, our primary creditor, is almost certain to become the world’s most powerful economy. Even Europe is telling Obama he is going in the wrong direction.

He implores us to vote for Democrats; and if we don’t, there will be no funding for AIDS. Yet Bush spent hundreds of millions on AIDS, as did Reagan and Gingrich. I no longer believe Gay propaganda and Gay editorial writers. I am tired of being expected to blindly follow a Democratic Party that usurps my Gayness to raise millions, only to raise my taxes and to promote bogus fear of Republicans to extort even more money from my friends and me.

During this campaign season, I have attended numerous GOP and “Gay” GOP events. None of the Republican candidates or GOP activists treated me like an alien. All of them welcomed my patriotism and my gayness. Now I realize how much “so-called progressive gay activists” lie and exaggerate about rightwing homophobia.

I am irate at how a once vibrant Florida economy has a higher unemployment rate than traditionally poor, under-developed Southern states like Louisiana, West Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi. Over one million Floridians are out of work, and that includes tens of thousand of Gay people. I am fed-up with being told that because I am Gay, I must vote Democratic! Otherwise, I will hate myself. I am tired of Gay left-wing demagoguery in South Florida.

In 2008, over one out of three Gay voters voted for John McCain in an otherwise dismal year for the GOP. They must have been on to something. I can only hope, for my country and for my unemployed friends and family that even more Gays will vote Republican in November. – PETER RYSKEWECZ