MachineVX, yeah better watch out - I have VX. LOL! Silly wabbit.

You got it all wrong.

I believe AIDS was not reported until 1982. Regardless, from 1984 on, every Reagan budget included a large sum specifically earmarked for AIDS to address the growing epidemic.

It is a common mistake among Reagan critics to point out that he did and said nothing about the AIDS epidemic until 1987. The source of the misconception comes from "The Encyclopedia of AIDS: A Social, Political, Cultural, and Scientific Record of the HIV Epidemic" edited by Raymond A. Smith. It erroneously says that "Reagan never even mentioned the word 'AIDS' publicly until 1987."

Official White House papers show that the 40th president spoke of AIDS no later than September 17, 1985. Responding to a question on AIDS research, the president gave an account of past and projected federal spending on the problem thus far and said, in reference to AIDS, that "this is a top priority with us. Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer." In the end, actual federal spending during his presidency would far exceed his original figures.

President Reagan's February 6, 1986 State of the Union address included this specific passage where he says the word "AIDS" five times:

"We will continue, as a high priority, the fight against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). An unprecedented research effort is underway to deal with this major epidemic public health threat. The number of AIDS cases is expected to increase. While there are hopes for drugs and vaccines against AIDS, none is immediately at hand. Consequently, efforts should focus on prevention, to inform and to lower risks of further transmission of the AIDS virus. To this end, I am asking the Surgeon General to prepare a report to the American people on AIDS."

In February 1986 President Reagan's budget for the next fiscal year stated the following:

"This budget provides funds for maintaining and in some cases expanding high priority programs in crucial areas of national interest including drug enforcement, AIDS research, the space program, nonmilitary research and national security." Reagan's budget message added that AIDS "remains the highest public health priority of the Department of Health and Human Services."

New York University's archived hard copies of budget documents from 1984-1989 show that Reagan proposed at least $2.79 billion for AIDS research, education, and treatment, but in a Congressional Research Service study titled "AIDS Funding for Federal Government Programs: FY1981-FY1999", author Judith Johnson found that overall, the federal government spent $5.727 billion on AIDS under Ronald Reagan. This higher number reflects President Reagan's proposals as well as additional expenditures approved by Congress that Reagan went on to sign into action.

Johnson's report shows annual federal AIDS spending during Ronald Reagan's watch was hardly the portrait of a do-nothing presidency:

Government Spending on HIV/AIDS

1982 - 8 million
1983 - 44 million
1984 - 103 million
1985 - 205 million
1986 - 508 million
1987 - 922 million
1988 - 1.6 billion
1989 - 2.3 billion

Source: Congressional Research Service

Some like to run around saying it still wasn't enough, but that's the kind of argument that takes place over everything in the federal budget. Reagan did quite a lot about it and got some results. There were no anti-virals back then. The first anti-viral developed was AZT which came along in 1987, and that was for AIDS. In all the years since then, despite the continuation of massive funding, there is still no cure. Clearly the lack of a cure to date is not due to a lack of trying, and certainly not to a lack of trying on the part of a president who left office in 1989.

Reagan's daughter, Patti Davis, recalled "the clear, smooth, non-judgmental way" in which her dad discussed the topic of homosexuality with her when she was age eight or nine:

"My father and I were watching an old Rock Hudson and Doris Day movie. At the moment when Hudson and Doris Day kissed, I said to my father, "That looks weird."... All I knew was that something about this particular man and woman was, to me, strange. My father gently explained that Mr. Hudson didn't really have a lot of experience kissing women; in fact, he would much prefer to be kissing a man. This was said in the same tone that would be used if he had been telling me about people with different colored eyes, and I accepted without question that this whole kissing thing wasn't reserved just for men and women."

"I remember Reagan telling us that in Hollywood he knew a lot of gays, and he never had any problem with them," says Martin Anderson, a high-level Reagan advisor since 1975 and coeditor of Reagan: A Life in Letters, the latest collection of material that Ronald Reagan wrote in his own hand. "I think a number of people who were gay worked for the Reagans," Anderson told me. " His basic attitude was 'Leave them alone.'"

Reagan opposed Proposition 6, a 1978 ballot measure that called for the dismissal of California teachers who "advocated" homosexuality, even outside of schools. Reagan used both a September 24, 1978 statement and a syndicated newspaper column to campaign against the initiative.

"Whatever else it is," Reagan wrote, "homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this." He also argued: "Since the measure does not restrict itself to the classroom, every aspect of a teacher's personal life could presumably come under suspicion. What constitutes 'advocacy' of homosexuality? Would public opposition to Proposition 6 by a teacher, should it pass, be considered advocacy?"

That November 7, Proposition 6 lost, 41.6 percent in favor to 58.4 percent against. Reagan's opposition is considered instrumental to its defeat.

"Despite the urging of some of his conservative supporters, he never made fighting homosexuality a cause," wrote Kenneth T. Walsh, former U.S. News and World Report White House correspondent, in his 1997 biography, Ronald Reagan. "In the final analysis, Reagan felt that what people do in private is their own business, not the government's."

Reagan evidently exhibited tolerance of homosexuality in his private life, and when it comes to public policy, he opposed the persecution of gays and devoted considerable taxpayer resources to AIDS research and treatment. The ideas that Ronald Reagan did nothing about AIDS and hated gays are both tired, left-wing lies about an American legend.