Michael Reagan mixes humor, honesty in SEMO lecture

As a child, Michael Reagan joked, he would ask his parents his first name because he was always introduced as "Ronald Reagan's or Jane Wyman's son."

The conservative talk show host and author has made a name for himself in his own right now. But it took a life of living in shame, unhappiness and fear that he was going to hell before that happened, he said.

Speaking to a half-full auditorium at Southeast Missouri State University's Academic Hall on Thursday, Reagan mixed humor and prickling honesty while telling stories about his life.

Reagan described growing up in a family where cocktail parties with famous actors were the norm, and each member of the family had personal engraved towels.

Money did not buy happiness, however, Reagan said. When he was 3, his adoptive parents divorced, leaving him blaming himself and desperately seeking their approval. At boarding school, he said, he didn't have a chance to develop a relationship with his parents. He turned away from God when he read in the Bible that illegitimate children could not enter heaven.

Sexually abused by a counselor in the third grade, Reagan lived in fear his parents would discover what had happened. Later in life he worried about his sexuality.

"We hear so much about broken homes," Reagan said. "People scoff at a man and a woman being married. The truth is, a child growing up in a home with a single mom and a boyfriend is 50 times more susceptible to being abused. ... Ultimately I was at risk," he said.

Reagan said a church needs to embrace these people instead of turning them away. He said many times churches turn a blind eye to child pornography or sexual abuse happening within their congregations.

"They need to think about inreaching, not outreaching," he said, saying too many are trying to become megachurches instead of taking care of their own population.

Reagan's life began to change when he met his wife, Colleen, who forced him to stop feeling sorry for himself and blaming God or his parents for his situation. He accepted God back into his life and developed a more meaningful relationship with his father.

Since then, he has gone on to host a nationally syndicated talk show and write "In the Words of Ronald Reagan: The Wit, Wisdom, and Eternal Optimism of America's 40th President" and "The City on a Hill: Fulfilling Ronald Reagan's Vision for America."

Throughout the evening Regan cracked jokes, including several about Cape Girardeau native Rush Limbaugh, who originally pushed Reagan out of his radio market in San Diego. He also joked that "if the Reagans don't adopt, they don't have a conservative son," referring to his liberal brother Ron, and told the story of how, at age 8, when he asked for a raise in allowance his father gave him a 45-minute lecture about the tax system in America.

His father spoke to a crowd of more than 7,000 people at the Show Me Center on Sept. 14, 1988.

lbavolek@semissourian.com

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