Former President Jimmy Carter, a man whose life had shown him unafraid to extend a hand to anyone and everyone in good faith, passed away at age 100 on December 29. Chip Carter, his son, confirmed that his father died peacefully at his home in Plains around 3:45 that afternoon.
For the LGBTQ+ community, President Carter is a pivotal figure, who was the first president in United States history to allow a formal discussion of gay rights in the walls of the White House. On March 26 of 1977, the conversations about gay rights took place in the Roosevelt Room, led by Midge Costanza, the first woman to serve as a senior adviser on the presidential staff. While Carter himself was not in the room, he had made consistent calls back and forth from his location at the time in Camp David.
Costanza herself was a closeted lesbian at the time, secretly dating Jean O’Leary, the co-executive director of the National Gay Task Force, the then fairly new activist organization springing out of New York City four years earlier.
The meeting the couple organized in that room consisted of twelve gay rights leaders from across the country. George Raya, now 75 and a longtime LGBTQ+ activist, is one of the last surviving attendees of that meeting. When asked by the Advocate to explain the significance of the meeting, Raya doesn’t hold back on the feelings of the moment.
“It started the ball rolling for gay rights, because back then, we had no rights,” Raya explained. “Many people don’t know just how big this meeting was, and the fact it occurred in the Roosevelt Room, which is the main White House conference room. I recall all the paintings on the wall of Theodore Roosevelt and FDR. It was extremely exciting.”
Raya’s contribution at the meeting focused on the pressing issue of hepatitis in the LGBTQ+ community. He advocated for increased research and action. “I had friends diagnosed and in the hospital because it was a serious illness that just totally destroyed the liver. People were dying,” he remembers. “The data collected later became pivotal in the fight against AIDS, as it provided crucial insights into how the virus was transmitted.”
The visit catalyzed key shifts in federal policies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development ceasing its discrimination against gay people seeking federal housing, the Immigration and Naturalization Service stopping its practice of barring gays from entering the country, and the Internal Revenue Service granting tax-exempt status to gay-oriented nonprofits like any other charitable organization.
Where this historic occasion started his legacy in backing LGBTQ+ rights, Carter would over time expand his vision, knowledge, and views of the queer community. A year later, in 1978, together with Former President Gerald Ford and future President Ronald Reagan, Carter spoke out against Proposition 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative, which asked voters to bar gays and lesbians from teaching in the public schools.
After his one term ended in Washington, defeated by Reagan, Carter would go on to put his time into humanitarian causes alongside his wife, Rosalynn Carter. Eventually, he and his wife’s work culminated in the creation of the Carter Center, which to this day focuses on making peace around the world through providing means for healthcare and being active in democracy.
LGBTQ+ rights group the Human Rights Campaign remembered Carter’s queer rights legacy in a statement on Sunday.“All of us at the Human Rights Campaign feel an immense loss with the passing of former President Jimmy Carter,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “In recent years, he became a prominent voice in support of LGBTQ+ rights, speaking out for marriage equality at a time when most national leaders in the U.S. still opposed it. For decades after he left the White House, he continued to make public service his enduring priority through his work with Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Presidential Center, cementing his reputation as a champion for human rights and as one of the all-time great former presidents. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and all who mourn him.”