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| President Carter's official portrait. |
I’ve mentioned a few times that in 1976 I was too young to vote, so instead I volunteered to do some election work for President Gerald Ford, who died in 2006. There were many reasons for that, including the fact I grew up in a Republican home, but there was one thing more: I didn’t trust Carter’s religiousness.
In 1976, I was still very deeply closeted, but on some level I recognised that fundamentalist Christians were the greatest threat to my freedom, liberty, and human rights. I knew Carter was a Southern Baptist, and had helped to popularise the phrase “born again”, so I was suspicious. As it turned out, I was also very wrong about him and his beliefs.
The Carter Administration ended the ban on gay and lesbian people working for the US Foreign Service. In 1977, his presidential advisor, Midge Costanza, invited gay and lesbian activists to the White House for a meeting to discuss relevant federal policy—the first time any presidential administration had done that. In 2012, he spoke out in favour of gay people and, specifically, his support for our right to marry, something I talked about at the time.
All of this by itself demonstrates that Carter was nothing like I’d assumed in 1976, but there was far more evidence. In 2000, he left the Southern Baptist Convention after they decided to stop ordaining women as pastors. He also spent his post-politics life working for peace and justice, and by building homes for poor people through Habitat for Humanity. Put another way, he was putting his Christianity into action, something very few “evangelicals” ever do, possibly because they’re too busy ordering other people how to live their lives in ways that the “evangelicals” approve of. Jimmy Carter was never like that, and I was totally wrong about him in 1976.
After he left office, he went on to become what many people—including me—consider to be the most effective former president in US history. I remember back when Reagan finally left office I said that when Jimmy Carter left office, he volunteered to build houses for the poor, and when Reagan left office, he registered as a paid lobbyist for for a foreign government. That pretty much sums up the huge difference between the character of Jimmy Carter and his successor as president. Also, if President Carter had won re-election in 1980 I’m certain that the federal government’s handling of HIV/AIDS would have dramatically better and actually humane and just than it was under Reagan. I’m certain that there’s absolutely no way it would’ve taken President Carter FOUR YEARS to acknowledge HIV/AIDS, and it’s definite that it wouldn’t have taken him SIX YEARS to give an address on it, unlike President Carter’s awful successor.
Jimmy Carter wasn’t the USA’s best president—I doubt anyone would seriously claim he was—but, apart from the Rightwing, not many folks would say he was the worst, either, not with so many other presidents having the “worst” rankings sewn up. Personally, I think he was good man who perhaps wasn’t suited to the presidency, though he tried his best. Regardless, all of that is overshadowed by what he did over the nearly four-and-a-half decades since he left the White House.
I still wish I’d voted for him in 1980, and maybe even volunteered for him in 1976, but all any of us can do at any time is to try to do our best, as far as we’re able. Jimmy Carter did that, and I’m profoundly grateful he did.
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