It’s September 1998, and I’m at lunch with several other journalists and a grandmother. As I sip my Coke, I hear a friendly male voice. You can tell he’s smiling. “Time to shake hands now,” he says.

We’re at the Carter Center in Atlanta for a few days. The other reporters and I have received Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. The grandma sitting with us is former first lady Rosalynn Carter, and the man with the warm smile is former President Jimmy Carter. “As soon as we get on a plane,” Mrs. Carter says, “Jimmy walks down the aisles and shakes hands with everybody. He knows they want to say hi to him.”

Jimmy Carter died Dec. 29 in hospice care in Georgia. President Biden declared Thursday a National Day of Mourning and Carter’s funeral will take place at Washington National Cathedral that day. After the funeral, Carter and his family will return to Plains, Ga. to Maranatha Baptist Church for a private funeral and then to Carter’s private residence for interment.

Twenty-five years ago, we journos were at the Carter Center to meet with experts in mental health so we could report accurately on the issue.  

The fellowship program was founded in 1996 by Rosalynn Carter. Mrs. Carter, who died in 2023 at age 96, was no mere figurehead. She knew every detail about our fellowship projects. Heaven help us, if she’d caught us asleep at the switch.

It takes nothing away from Mrs. Carter to note how essential her personal and professional partnership with her husband Jimmy Carter was to her and her work.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were married in 1946. The first thing that hit you when you saw them together was how deeply they loved each other. There was nothing sappy about how they were with each other.

One morning, President Carter ambled into the conference room before our session on stigma and mental health was about to begin. Kenneth W. Starr had just delivered his report on (then) President Bill Clinton’s alleged abuses and affair with Monica Lewinsky. Naturally, we, the reporters in the room, asked Jimmy Carter how he felt about Bill Clinton. We were committed to mental health journalism. But, a former president was there – standing by the wall.

President Carter didn’t seem to want to hold back. He said he didn’t think that highly of Bill Clinton. But, before he could go on to say more, Mrs. Carter gave him a look. The look you give your spouse after decades of loving togetherness. Especially, if you’re a political couple and your mate’s being grilled by scribes eager to make news. “I know,” Jimmy Carter said, smiling, to Rosalynn Carter, his most ardent supporter and astute critic, “I’m talking too much, darlin’. I’m leaving now.”

You could tell how proud President Carter was of Mrs. Carter. At lunch or dinner, you’d see him nodding approvingly at her when she spoke of her work. You could see it in how he teased her. “Rosalynn talks about mental health all the time,” Jimmy Carter said, with a laugh, one night, as he saw Mrs. Carter chatting with us about how the media reported on mental health.

What I most recall about Jimmy Carter is his generosity of spirit. “I beat Jerry Ford,” President Carter said, “but Rosalyn and I are good friends with the Fords now.”

He wasn’t using the word “friends” in the way politicos often do. The Carters and the Fords were friends who worked together on mental health and other issues.

I hadn’t yet come out as a lesbian when I was at the Carter Center. But I didn’t feel I had to remain closeted or silent about my (then) partner. Carter was, what today likely would be an oxymoron: a born-again Christian, who welcomed everyone.

The Carter Center, which the Carters founded after his presidency, is like a theme park, where, instead of standing in line for attractions, people work to resolve conflicts and eradicate diseases.

Thank you, President Carter for your work, humanity and being an LGBTQ ally. R.I.P., Jimmy Carter.

Kathi Wolfe, a writer and poet, was a regular contributor to the Blade. She wrote this tribute just before she passed away in June 2024.

Jimmy Carter is venerated for his many notable accomplishments including support for African-American civil rights, Nobel Prize recipient, energy security, conservation, transportation deregulation, and remarkable post-presidency accomplishments, among others. As to LGBTQ rights, Carter’s less than admirable White House legacy reflects societal prejudices during his 1977 to 1981 presidency.

At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, the Platform Committee rejected by a vote of 54 to 34 a plank to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. At that convention, Jim Foster and Madeline Davis became the first openly gay delegates to address a national political convention’s plenary session. Foster and Davis’s addresses on July 12 were scheduled at 5 a.m. for Minority Report #8, which Walter Cronkite called “the Gay Lib plank.”

As a 1976 presidential candidate, Carter courageously endorsed the Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation. Carter appointed Midge Constanza, a closeted lesbian to head his Office of Public Liaison. Constanza, a former Rochester City Council member, had served as Carter’s New York State campaign coordinator. Constanza was the only woman in a senior position on Carter’s White House staff. 

On March 26, 1977, Constanza hosted the first meeting of gay representatives at the White House. The group of 12 included gay pioneer Frank Kameny, Rev. Troy Perry, and Jenn O’Leary and Bruce Voeller, co-chairs of the National Gay Task Force. After being alerted by a National Gay Task Force press release, major news organizations covered the story. The following day, Anita Bryant, who started a Christian crusade against homosexual rights stated that the Office of the President had been duped into blessing an abnormal lifestyle and vowed to “lead such a crusade to stop homosexuals as this country has not seen before.”

By 1978, Constanza was demoted; her office moved from adjoining the Oval Office to the basement; and her staff of more than a dozen cut to one. In August 1978, she resigned.

In November 1977, Harvey Milk became a San Francisco Supervisor. He was one of the first openly gay Americans to be elected to public office. In 1978, Milk was assassinated. That year 70% of Americans opposed discrimination protections based on sexual orientation. In 1979, Carter launched his campaign for reelection. 

At the 1980 Democratic National Convention, 77 of the seated delegates were openly gay and lesbian up from the handful at the 1976 convention. Melvin Boozer, an African-American Ph.D. from Yale and head of the DC Gay Activists Alliance was nominated for vice president of the United States. In Boozer’s remarks, he stated he wouldn’t accept the nomination, but called on delegates to adopt the gay rights plank.

Twelve years later, at the 1992 Democratic National Convention and with the support of party presidential candidate Bill Clinton that Bob Hattoy, a gay man with AIDS and Roberta Achtenberg, cofounder of the National Center for Lesbian Rights became the first openly gay delegates to address the convention in prime time. There were rainbow flags and signs for “Lesbian and Gay Rights Now!” 

Carter did not embrace homophobia. He was one of the nation’s most decent and foresighted leaders. While he disappointingly broke his campaign promise to support the Equality Act, like other historic figures Carter’s record should be assessed within the context of society’s then social constructs and political realities. 

Based on the totality of his legacy, Jimmy Carter left the world a better place. His memory is a blessing.

Malcolm Lazin is executive director of LGBT History Month. Learn more at lgbtHistoryMonth.com.

As we move toward Jan. 20, when Donald Trump and his acolytes complete their takeover of the government, we really have no idea what will happen. Trump and his co-president, Elon Musk, lie with impunity. It’s hard to tell if they believe their own lies. 

For Trump, a decision is often based on who whispered in his ear last. He is easily riled, and when it comes to Musk, it was fun to see him feel he had to respond when Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) called Musk, President Musk. In a Phoenix rally Trump felt obliged to explain Musk couldn’t be president as he wasn’t born here. We know Trump is losing it, often mixing up where he is, names, and dates. Will the media report on that the way they did with Biden?  It is getting more apparent the media is being cowed by Trump. Recently the New York Times reported, “Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for The Washington Post, said on Friday evening that she was resigning after the newspaper’s opinions section rejected a cartoon depicting The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, (and other media moguls) genuflecting toward a statue of President-elect Donald J. Trump.” 

The first test of how the Republican Senate will respond to Trump will begin shortly as they start the hearings on his Cabinet nominees. We will soon know if even the few rational Republican senators left keep their lips firmly glued to Trump’s ass, or will at least four of them find their balls? While most of Trump’s nominees will sail through, no matter how bad they are, there are a few we need to watch closely. Those are Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary; Kash Patel for FBI Director; RFK Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services; and Tulsi Gabbard, for Director of National Intelligence. These nominations are an abomination and dangerous. 

Hegseth’s hearings will be conducted by the Armed Services Committee with Chairman Roger Wicker, (R-Miss), and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will first need to get through the Senate Finance Committee; Michael Crapo (R-Idaho) chair, and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member. Patel will go to the Senate Judiciary Committee with Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) as chair, and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), as ranking member. Tulsi Gabbard will go to the Senate Intelligence Committee with Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) as chair, and Mark Warner (D-Va.), as ranking member.

I am not holding my breath that any Republicans will ask the tough questions. But we can hope Democrats will. It will be interesting to see what they focus on. Will they ask RFK Jr. the important questions on children’s vaccines? We know he opposes them but will he take away the mandate for insurance to pay for them? Will he try to get school systems to abandon their requirement that children be vaccinated before coming to school? Will he oppose continuing to have NIH do the research to develop a vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS? What will he do about the polio vaccine and ensuring it is paid for all children? Will he recommend we withdraw from the World Health Organization? 

Then will they ask Gabbard about her meeting with deposed Syrian dictator Assad, her relations with Vladimir Putin, and the war in Ukraine? How she would handle classified documents and what did she think about how Trump handled them? What are the changes she wants to make in the agencies reporting to the Director of National Intelligence? Does she even know what each of them does? How does her background qualify her for this important and sensitive job? 

Then there is Hegseth. What will they ask him? What does he see as his qualifications for the job? Does he understand what the job is, and his relationship to the Joint Chiefs of Staff? What are Patel’s qualifications to lead the FBI? Will he go after an enemies list based on all his previous statements? 

I would assume Democrats on the committees will be prepped with a long list of questions to ask each nominee, and will work together to try to make the American people understand how each is totally unqualified to head the agency they are being nominated to lead. Then we will have to look at how the media report on all these hearings. 

One of the things the American people need to understand is whether or not they believe in Trump’s version of ‘America First,’ each of these nominees will impact how we deal with the world, and whether we are ever trusted again. 

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.