Photo via the Rock Hudson project.

I just watched an interesting interview with Patty Davis on the YouTube about her father and what he*might* think about gay marriage if he were alive and sentient. The best bit is when she described watching a Rock Hudson movie with Reagan and his explanation as to why Rock didn’t seem to enjoy kissing a chick.This quote comes from the NYT via TPM but it’s the same basic tale:

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.

It is, of course, the same old personal experience story writ large. Ronnie was a movie star, after all, and knew lots of “those people.” It’s a shame, however, that it took him so long to come around on AIDS; mostly after Rock Hudson’s death from the plague. That does illustrate the down side of the personal experience theory: a lot of people died while the feds did very little.

Back to the marriage equality quote from Patty Davis. Any mention of Saint Ronnie in the same sentence with the phrase “he probably wouldn’t have been against marriage equality” is going to make some wingnuts shit themselves and stroke out. All I can say to that is: Hooray for Hollywood.

Anyhoo, here’s the video of Ms. Davis on Gwissues:

Via Slate.