Thinking about the first gay president on this holiday...

Like Bill Clinton was called the nation's "first black president' for his special connection to the African-American community, Barack Obama has been dubbed "the first gay president" for his championing of LGBT rights.  But on this Presidents' Day holiday, with all due respect to Mr. Obama, I think it is fair to ask who really was our first gay American leader? 

One strong possibility must be President James Buchanan, a lifetime bachelor who loved and lived with William Rufus King, senator from Alabama. Most historians agree that Buchanan was gay, with ample evidence of his homosexuality, including this part of a personal letter that he wrote, after King had moved to Paris to become our ambassador to France, to a friend:

I am now “solitary and alone,” having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.

But another possibility for this honor must be our greatest president of all: Abraham Lincoln, who directly preceded Buchanan.  Lincoln had several close relationships with men that he also slept with -- one even after marrying Mary Todd and becoming president.  Imagine that: our honest Abe as a homo, or at least a bisexual man!  While old-school historians stubbornly defend Lincoln heterosexual bonafides by claiming it was common in that period for men to share a bed, more open-minded (and non-homophobic) researchers acknowledge that Lincoln was at least bisexual in behavior.  A good book on this subject, written by one of Kinsey's longtime (and straight) research assistants, C.W. Tripp, "The Intimate Life of Abraham Lincoln," is quite convincing.  At first, I was skeptical, but I was won over by Mr. Tripp's arguments in the end. Here is what the New York Times said in the review of Tripp's book:

Six years later, Lincoln moved to Springfield, where he met Joshua Speed, who became a close friend; John G. Nicolay and John Hay, two early biographers, called him ''the only -- as he was certainly the last -- intimate friend that Lincoln ever had.'' Lincoln and Speed shared a double bed in Speed's store for four years (for two of those years, two other young men shared the room, though not the bed). More important than the sleeping arrangements was the tone of their friendship. Lincoln's letters to Speed before and after Speed's wedding in 1842 are as fretful as those of a general before a dubious engagement. Several of them are signed ''Yours forever.''

I have known/know plenty of men who have married women, had kids, and have loved their wives, but still think of themselves as gay. Lincoln was a wildly ambitious man (who wanted to be remembered by history as a great leader) and he knew the importance of being married in order to advance in society. So given his attractions and goals, I am not surprised he married.

I think it is naive to ask the question "why does all this matter?" It matters because we still live in a homophobic society where gay people often feel invisible and are beaten, bullied, fired, discriminated against, and trivialized for being themselves. Gay men are especially shamed for their sexuality -- from the church to the locker room -- and are sometimes not considered to be "real men." We need to be truthful about American history and have role models so every kid in America knows that being gay is okay.

Just like we are aware of the many loves of Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy, I look forward to the day when every school kid knows that our "giant of a man," Abraham Lincoln,  celebrated same-sex love, too.