AP: Historians Defend Book Theorizing Lincoln Was Gay...

[Hissyspit]

...Call For More Research"

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBZ74YDO7E.html

Historians Defend Book That Claims Lincoln Was Gay, Call for More Research
By Christopher Wills
Associated Press Writer

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - It must have been the first conference in the history of Abraham Lincoln scholarship to call the Great Emancipator "a terrifically sexual guy."
Addressing the nation's top Lincoln scholars on Sunday, two historians defended a new book that claims Lincoln was gay and called for more research into his sexuality.

"I could build a Lincoln Log cabin of homophobic denial," said Civil War historian Michael Chesson. "There's been a cover-up, a conspiracy of silence for experts to hide what they regard as dirty linen in Abe's faded carpetbag."

The reason for the discussion - part of a conference held in conjunction with the opening of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum - is a new book called "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln."

- snip -

Seeking to save money and stay warm in crude buildings, men of the day often shared beds. But Lincoln and Speed lived together long after they could afford separate quarters. Though both men married and Lincoln had four children, Tripp concluded they were lovers.

OH, SO MUCH MORE AT LINK

[dsc]

1. I actually know Douglass Wilson

and am surprised he didn't have a coronary on the spot. I do agree though that the evidence is a bit shaky. Buchanan probably was gay but Lincoln is lacking evidence.

[zalinda]

2. Maybe...................he just didn't like sleeping alone.

Some people get used to sleeping with another person in bed and have a difficult time falling asleep when someone's not there. Or, he needed body heat to stay warm, they didn't have central heating. Many "historians" see history with today's viewpoint, instead what was really happening. Looking at an incident through the era's viewpoint can give us an entirely different understanding of what happened.

zalinda

[hlthe2b]

3. I constantly see gaggles of rumour mongering folks of both genders

making assumptions about single unmarried women being lesbians, just because they are of a "certain age" and have bypassed marriage and children for career. :eyes:

Given how easy it is to make current assumptions, I surely would not buy into historical conclusions based on this little. Lincoln almost assuredly had Marfan Syndrome, a genetic conncective tissue disease that results in tall height with disproportionately long fingers, and extremities, and cardiac abnormalities, including resultant abnormal rhythms and fainting spells. Conceivably this could have caused him to experience difficulty staying warm--hence benefitting from sharing a bed with others, as apparently was not uncommon at the time.

[Mizmoon]

17. He had a difficult childhood

He wrote of the side of pioneer life few enjoy discussing ... how freaking terrifying it was. He recalled what it was like to be a young boy with his family, all surrounded by darkness and wild animals at night with only the campfire keeping them safe. How hard it was to make the land farm-able, how they were exhausted and sick half the time and there was no time for schooling for him because they had to work so hard to survive. This is probably why he was depressed ... these were difficult and frightening memories.

The idea that he may not have wanted to sleep alone is not farfetched in my opinion.

[mimitabby]

23. body heat to stay warm?

the president had plenty of servants who could warm his bed
before he got into it.. They had contraptions to do that.
i dont buy it.

[Shadder]

4. So what?

Who really gives a flying fuck?

[zalinda]

5. The ONLY reason it matters is

history should be accurate. If it was a work of fiction, there would be no problem, but it is a "historic" book.

zalinda

[eowyn_of_rohan]

6. How dumb this is. Speculating over his sexuality

with NO proof, when he's been gone 140 years, and cannot speak for himself...Besides being irrelevant, this will NEVER be considered accurate historical information.

[bluedog]

9. who cares

it doesn't effect us now in this day and age..........what to speculate?.......maybe Booth was a jilted lover.........see.thats how speculation works..

[eowyn_of_rohan]

10. psssst. I read somewhere that Richard Nixon was gay.

Remember the 18 minute gap in the Watergate Tapes? And what about Rove and his connections to both Nixon and Jeff Gannon? Hmmmmm....want to speculate? ;)

[Doctor Panacea]

7. Bed sharing

I don't know about the gay issue; I have heard it discussed before, and the evidence appears circumstantial.

It is interesting to read these board postings. I don't think that most people today are able to see events through the proper cultural lenses. Bed sharing was once very common, and it was not necessarily anything about needing body heat (like piling sled dogs on top of you in a "three-dog night" situation :)). People just slept together because the bed spaces were managed that way. And men who were friends often wrote very affectionately to one another.

Lincoln may have had Marfan's syndrome, which exists in varying degrees of severity. It can be fatal early in life, or it can be relatively benign (the so-called "form fruste" of it). In any case, the Marfan's had nothing to do with the whole issue of sharing a bed.

Of course, open homosexuality was a taboo in Lincoln's day, and many men with the leanings repressed it all and went on to marry and have families. I don't think it is really possible to know about Lincoln.

Buchanan? Oh, he was gay. He probably spent his off hours tap-dancing and singing Stephen Foster songs. :spank:

[yurbud]

8. But did he catch or pitch?

that makes all the difference

[deadite]

11. Does this just make anyone else think of that "Gay Bar" video?

I guess we know where that band stood on this subject...

[JohnnyBoots]

12. I hope he was just for the

sheer irony of the founder of the Republican party being a gay man. Do you think they would posthumously excommunicate him from the GOP?

[eowyn_of_rohan]

13. Minor technical error

I'm sure you know that he didn't found it. It was founded by members of the Whig party, in Ripon Wisconsin in the 1850s.

[TexasSissy]

14. Well, if Abe loved his wife Mary, and if Abe is to be believed that

he was really in love with another woman before he married Mary....then that, at most, would make Abe bisexual, not gay, right? And that's only if someone believes that he slept with his friend longer than necessary because of a sexual relationship w/him.

So, sorry, I don't see any proof here that Abe was outright gay. Though some would love it to be so. It sure sells books, too.

[Bridget Burke]

15. Nobody was "Gay" back then....

"Homosexual" hadn't even been invented. In cosmopolitan, artsy circles, some lived unusual lifestyles.

But out on the edge of the frontier, nobody really cared about the "confirmed bachelors" or spinsters sharing living quarters. Reading correspondence of the day, many same-sex friendships were quite intense. But the physical details weren't mentioned.

[lawladyprof]

18. Excellent point and a currently relevant one

The right/Christian right tries to divide into two categories: heterosexual and homosexual but, as you point, there are also bi-sexuals. I've long wondered if the "cures" they claim are of bi-sexual people rather than purely gay individuals.

[TexasSissy]

26. Good point. I'd never thought of that, before...that

the miracle "cures" are really bisexuals who just give up one of the genders, but still are attracted to the other. They always present the miracles as gays, and I took that to be true (silly me! I should know better.). :silly:

[ReadTomPaine]

16. Log Cabin Republicans picked the name well it seems. n/t

[MADem]

22. They chose the name deliberately, with Abe in mind

This isn't really "news," though the new book puts the issue in the spotlight once again. Speculation about Lincoln has been going on for eons. Some say that Mary Todd wasn't flaky, as some accounts claim, she was just totally pissed off and permanently inconsolable, having caught her man 'in flagrante delicto.'

Historically, it has significance, if it could be established one way or another, simply because the latest group to catch a load of invective and argument is the gay community. And the GOP uses their quest for equality as a wedge to solidify their support with the far right and the fundamentalists.

I wonder when, or IF, the day will come when no one CARES what one does with one's fiddly bits?

[PurityOfEssence]

19. the "Lincoln's faded carpetbag" line reeks of Confederate smearing

People are what they are, and if they're lucky, they're able to live as such. No sexuality is superior to any other on a moral basis, and the compromises that have to be made to be true to individuals with whom you have congress are ethical questions that have nothing to do with orientation.

What smacks ugly about this phrase is the use of "carpetbagging", which is the traditional Southern slur for Northern opportunists coming down to take advantage of their woeful situation. The "faded" modifier is a further attack on Lincoln's character.

Remember: Lincoln was born in Kentucky, and his wife was Kentucky Gentry who lost brothers and many blood-kin in the war fighting for the secessionists. Maybe she WAS a beard, but maybe he enjoyed the comforts of both sexes. Hell, maybe this is all a tempest in a teapot, and he never "did" men at all. What's nauseating is the homophobia used to dismiss him as a poof as well as the sexual superiority used by extremist/elitist gays to claim him as one of their own.

The South lost the war because they thought they were better than other people and they weren't. They've been trying to re-write their mythology and their Generals' biographies ever since to justify this idiocy, and it just doesn't wash.

[Mark E. Smith]

20. New Book Claims Lincoln Was Gay

SPRINGFIELD, Ill - It must have been the first conference in the history of Abraham Lincoln scholarship to call the Great Emancipator "a terrifically sexual guy."

Addressing the nation's top Lincoln scholars on Sunday, two historians defended a new book that claims Lincoln was gay and called for more research into his sexuality.

"I could build a Lincoln Log cabin of homophobic denial," said Civil War historian Michael Chesson. "There's been a cover-up, a conspiracy of silence for experts to hide what they regard as dirty linen in Abe's faded carpetbag."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0418LincolnBook18-ON.html

The modern GOP ain't gonna like this...

[Nevernose]

21. This'll be a History Channel "documentary" before the year is out

n/t

[ReadTomPaine]

24. No doubt with a hit-piece section on the Kennedys worked in somehow. n/t

[Piperay]

25. It's irresponsible to make

assumptions either way based on today's mores. Things were different then and you can't hold the same standards of over 150 years ago and judge them on today's. I really don't care what Lincoln was or wasn't. I don't to want to even think of him having sex, that's an imagine I don't need.x(