Nancy Reagan will be laid to rest this week after passing away at the age of 94 on Sunday. Wife to Ronald Reagan, the nation’s 40th president, the former First Lady is often remembered for her start in Hollywood, her glamorous time in the White House, and her role as her husband’s trusted confidante and protector. But the Reagans also played a critical role in the HIV/AIDS crisis that ravaged the United States in the 1980s....

Despite Nancy Reagan’s glowing reputation as a first lady in other fields, her role in urging her husband to act, or not act, in the AIDS epidemic remains a point of contention for LGBTQ activists. “I've decided to be as quiet about Nancy Reagan's death,” tweeted the actor and writer Frank Conniff after her death on Sunday. “As she and her husband were about all the deaths from AIDS during his administration.”Though the World Health Organization was holding meetings about AIDS by 1983, the White House offered little support for awareness of the epidemic. Reagan, who first took office in 1981, didn’t publicly address AIDS until well into his second term. According to ABC, more than 20,000 Americans had died from the disease by the time he first spoke about it.

The first lady notoriously had enormous sway over her husband, and could have intervened if she wished. She infamously tried to champion another epidemic of the era, drugs, with the overly simplified and ultimately harmful "Just Say No" campaign. It failed due to ignoring the roots of the cause and not understanding that addiction is a disease, not a choice. (The Guardian) writes, "Much like abstinence-based sex education... 'Just Say No' spread fear and ignorance instead of information." Like HIV/AIDS, the White House failed to properly educate itself, and as a result, let down its most vulnerable citizens in another spectacular way...

Despite Nancy Reagan’s glowing reputation as a first lady in other fields, her role in urging her husband to act, or not act, in the AIDS epidemic remains a point of contention for LGBTQ activists. “I've decided to be as quiet about Nancy Reagan's death,” tweeted the actor and writer Frank Conniff after her death on Sunday. “As she and her husband were about all the deaths from AIDS during his administration.”