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When I told my mother recently that Abraham Lincoln was gay, she reacted angrily. Granted the only documented evidence is that President Lincoln slept in the same room and bed as another man for about a five year period before he was married or president, but she “defended” him, claiming that just because he slept in the same bed as another man does not equate being a flamer. Which is true. But it also misses the point. She felt the need to defend him, implying there was something to defend against. She thought I was claiming some outrageous accusation against the great president who ended slavery and united the union which in turn may signify something truly offensive against the United States of America, whereas I believed my assertion to be completely neutral. No term existed until the 1880s for homosexuals, queers, gays, lesbians or transgendered folk, so there would be no definitive proof as to whether Lincoln was gay or straight. He might have been very straight, but he very well might have been gay, and it seems a little antiquated to assume straightness as the status quo and certainly should not be considered offensive when I do not. I stick by my statement that President Lincoln is gay. I mean no insult–if anything, from me it should be considered a compliment. We queers need our heroes too, and since Lincoln very possibly if not likely was a homo, he seems like a great place to start.
The first openly queer politician in America was Harvey Milk, and anyone who lived in the 1970s or has seen Sean Penn’s brilliant performance know how that story tragically ended. Queers haven’t appeared much in our political landscape since, and while progressive, politicians like Barney Frank are not exactly easy to rally behind let alone have achieved heroic status. Great men and women throughout our history have been rumored to be queer–Alexander the Great, Socrates, Lord Byron, Michelangelo, James Dean–and for others the evidence is a little more clear–Oscar Wilde, Federico Garcia Lorca, Virginia Wolfe, James Baldwin–but societal acceptance of queerness has only recently become sufficient enough that prominent people are coming out during their careers and lives. People like Barney Frank, Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen Degeneres and Ricky Martin, and while they should be celebrated for coming out, the level of hero is a slightly higher standard than most have reached. There are heroes everyday in our personal lives, whether it be a really good friend who made you feel better on the worst possible day or someone who saves the life of a complete stranger, but the mainstream heroes are few. We need a few well-known queer heroes to empower the masses and to rally behind, people with stories to inspire greatness in others. Hopefully as we move forward in the future, more and more people will feel comfortable to come out and openly proclaim their queerness, and as that occurs, we will have more and more openly queer heroes. But until that happens, we need to claim our queer heroes wherever we can find them which will simultaneously allow us to map a queer world history which at present is very deficient. If evidence suggests Lincoln might be a homosexual, we should claim him. Being gay would just be another attribute of a great man and a true hero, and we queers deserve our heroes too.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
