Was Buchanan Gay (and other Presidential Tidbits)

[WillParkinson]

Was James Buchanan the first gay Prez?


'I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damned business," Chester Arthur once thundered.
Well, Mr. 21st President, that wasn't true in 1881, and it sure isn't true today. Just in time for our annual celebration of America's Oval Officers comes "Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents," in which Cormac O'Brien collects all the delicious White House gossip "your teachers never told you."

Among the aromatic items:


George Washington spent an estimated 7% of his salary on booze.

Lifelong bachelor James Buchanan weathered rumors about his close friendship with William Rufus King, who was Franklin Pierce's vice president. Washington wags referred to them as "Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy" and "Mr. Buchanan and his wife."

POTUS with the mostest John Quincy Adams was fond of skinny-dipping in the Potomac.

Zachary Taylor died from an overdose of bad cherries.

John Tyler, the 10th prez, married the woman his son, John Jr., was courting.

Poker-loving President Warren G. Harding played fast and loose with White House property. "During one heated game, bet an entire box of priceless White House china and lost it," O'Brien writes.

Gerald Ford allegedly had a flatulence problem, "often blaming the Secret Service men surrounding him."
In other presidential news, "Queer Eye" fashionista Carson Kressley has something to tell the current occupant of the White House:

"I wouldn't kick President Bush out of my bed," Kressley said during a recent taping of CNBC's "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch," but added: "Although I do think he needs some sassy highlights."

[pagerbear]

1. Carson, how could you?

Kick him out of bed? I'd kick him out of my apartment, and I rather suspect he wouldn't be welcome on the streets of Inwood, NYC!

[WillParkinson]

2. Kick him out of your apartment?

I hope you're on the 23 floor...

[terrya]

3. Well, you've heard the suggestion about Lincoln.

There is evidence that Lincoln may have been intimately involved with a male law partner, Joshua Speed. When Lincoln and Speed were practicing law together, they also shared a bed. There are letters that exist today between the two, and while there may not have been sexual relations between the two, the letters apparently show a strong emotional intimate bond between them.

There are some historians today that downplay the sharing of the bed thing, as it was apparently somewhat common for two men to share a bed together at the time (for financial reasons)

Larry Kramer is one, though, that maintains because of this that Lincoln was gay.

Terry

[SheilaT]

4. Our current sense of privacy

and personal space is very, very different from what it was in the middle of the 19th Century. In early inns total strangers typically shared beds. It by no means suggests sexual relations occurring.

And the emotional language used which would show up in letters, was again very different back then. It just doesn't seem as though there's any pattern of behavior on Lincoln's part that would realistically suggest he was other than a heterosexual.

[terrya]

5. I understand what you're saying.

I don't think Lincoln had sexual relations with Speed, myself. I do think he and Speed had a strong emotional bond.

There wasn't the idea of a gay identity in the middle 19th century, certainly. The word "homosexual" wasn't even coined until the late 19th century.


I wouldn't know exactly how to classify Lincoln and Speed's relationship. It sounds like something much stronger than mere friendship, though.

Terry

[OneBlueSky]

6. my first thought in reading that headline was . . .

"Pat Buchanan's gay?" . . . then I came to my senses . . . :)