Was He? Does It Matter?

Here in the US, today is “Presidents’ Day”.  In my childhood and adolescence, schools were closed on the 12^th of February to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s (but not Charles Darwin’s) birthday and on the 22^nd for George Washington’s birth.  Some time when I was in college, I think, the two holidays were combined into a Monday observance.

I haven’t seen many attempts to psychoanalyze George Washington.  However, about a decade ago, it seemed fashionable (at least among actual and wannabe historians) to speculate on Lincoln’s sexual proclivities.  More than a few people who were trying to make names for themselves or simply to seem smart (to whom, I don’t want to know) claimed that Lincoln was gay.  They cited such evidence as the fact that he sometimes shared his bed with other men and that he seemed distant, even cold, toward his wife.

Now, I would not be upset if someone could prove once and for all that “Honest Abe” was indeed a homophile.  However, I also can’t say that the question of whether or not he was doesn’t occupy my mind.  For that matter, I don’t find myself thinking much at all about whether famous historical figures were straight, gay or whatever, unless it has some obvious bearing on their actions.

To be perfectly honest, I never could impute any sort of sexuality to Lincoln.  In every portrait I’ve seen of him—and the monument to him in Washington, DC—he simply seems too dour to experience any sort of passion or pleasure.  In fact, the time I saw his larger-than-life statue in the nation’s capital, all I could think was, “Shit, that guy was ugly!”  

About his sharing his bed:  It wasn’t uncommon in those days before central heating and such.  Even today, people of the same sex sometimes share a bed because they’re sharing the same space—for the same reasons people who aren’t romantically linked would share a space.  Also, if he was indeed cold or distant to his wife, I could easily understand it, having seen the portraits and read accounts of him.  His contemporaries noted that he often seemed sad and distant; he himself confessed to suffering bouts of depression. As someone who can honestly say she’s experienced her share of despair, I can attest to the difficulty of letting yourself get close to someone, or letting someone get close to you, when you’re trying to find your own self-worth.

The real point, though, is that trying to “prove” that some long-dead historical figure was gay or lesbian or straight makes the person trying to make the case—and the group into which the person is trying to fit said historical figure—seem less credible and overly concerned with the seemingly trivial.

If anything, I think it’s more important for LGBT people to figure out whether we can apply any of his methods or lessons to our own struggles. As to whether he would have supported same-sex marriage…well, he believed that people should be free and equal.  I’ll leave it at that.

The Origins Of Emancipation

Today I learned something interesting. 

If you live in the USA, you know that it’s Lincoln’s birthday.  Some argue he was this country’s greatest President:  He led the nation in the Civil War after several southern states seceded from the Union, and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which outlawed (but did not end) slavery.

Until I was in high school, the anniversary of his birth was a national holiday.  Schools, banks and other institutions were closed.  The same thing happened on the 22^nd, George Washington’s birthday.  In the 1970’s, the two holidays were folded into one Monday observance known as President’s Day.  However, Lincoln’s Birthday is still observed in New York State.

But I digress.  Today I learned that someone else who changed the world at least as much as Lincoln did was born on this date.  What’s more, he was born in the same year.

The 12^th of February in 1809 witnessed the birth of Lincoln—and Charles Darwin.  As far as I know, the two men never met.  Darwin may have been aware of what Lincoln was doing in office, but I suspect that Lincoln was not aware of Darwin’s work.  Somehow I imagine that had “Abe” read The Origins of the Species, he would have understood its worth and necessity.

In my own uninformed opinion, Lincoln would not have been a “social Darwinist.”  The funny thing is that Darwin himself wasn’t one.  In his writings, he actually said that species, including humans, have to cooperate and even act altruistically in order to adapt and survive.  That leads me to believe that most of those who talk about “survival of the fittest” (a phrase Darwin himself never used until Herbert Spencer coined it) have never read Darwin’s classic work:  They probably learned nothing more than the comic-book summary most kids learn when they’re in junior high school. (At least, that’s when we learned it in my day.)  In my own admittedly amateur reading of Origin, it is a specie’s ability to adapt and reproduce, not its ruthlessness, that determines its survival.

Now you might wonder where this leaves LGBT people.  From my own unbiased ;-) observation, we can adapt to conditions, whether through confrontation or cooperation.  Plus, I think that we have at least our share of altruism:  We are represented disproportionately in the “helping” professions and among paid workers and volunteers for organizations and causes that promote social and economic justice.

So, I think it’s appropriate for us to celebrate this day, the anniversary of the birth of two people who made the world in which we live—and the means we have to improve our lot—possible.

MLK And LGBT People

Sometimes President Obama seems to think he's channeling Martin Luther King Jr. when he doesn't think he's a reincarnation of President Lincoln.  I guess he can do worse for role models although, aside from his being black and his stated belief in civil rights, I don't see much connection between Barack and MLK.  The latter was a visionary, a prophet.  Whatever his merits, Obama is a politician.  That means MLK adopted views that aligned with what he perceived and exprienced; Obama is thinking about votes and donations.

I don't mean this as a condemnation of Obama.  After all, he did change his position on gay marriage.  However, it's hard not to notice that he opposed it during his first campaign for the Presidency; he finally came out in support of it after Vice-President Biden expressed his.  

On the other hand, he did voice his support.  Plus, even though he could have been more proactive, he's done more to support transgender people than all of the presidents before him did.  Then again, the best of his predecessors did nothing; the others did what they could to make our lives more difficult.

But, as I said, Obama deserves some credit.  And, perhaps, he can claim MLK's mantel after all.  Nobody knows for sure whether King would have supported LGBT equality, as he was slain more than a year before the Stonewall Rebellion.  But we do know that he never said anything negative about queer people, and didn't countenance a "literal" or "fundamentalist" reading of the Bible that interprets Leviticus and other books of the Bible as injunctions against loving people of one's own sex.

Furthermore, King allowed Bayard Rustin, a friend who happened to be openly gay, to serve as one of his closest advisors.  Plus, he when he wrote an advice column for Ebony magazine, he responded in a sensitive (though, not surprisingly, pastoral) way to a letter from a boy who confessed his feelings toward other boys.  Given the time--1958--it was a very tolerant and forward-thinking response.

Still, some insist that King would not have considered LGBT rights the next logical step in the civil rights movement.  One of them is his own daughter, Rev. Bernice King.  In 2005, she led a march her father's grave while calling for a Constitutional ban on gay marriage. During a speech at a church meeting in New Zealand, she said her father "did not take a bullet for gay marriage."

But King's widow, Coretta Scott King, vocally supported gay rights.  One of her closest aides was gay.  (Are you seeing a pattern here?)  Furthermore, the FBI tapped his telephone conversations, and he was one of the most surveilled people on the planet.  Yet no one could find a conversation, sermon, speech, lecture or letter of his that expressed any sort of anti-gay sentiment.

Given what I've seen and read, I think that if MLK had lived longer, he would have made LGBT equality part of his civil-rights platform.  After all, he didn't turn away anyone else whose rights were denied or trampled.  I suspect that, being a preacher from the South in the time in which he lived, he simply didn't think much about LGBT people because, well, they hadn't made it onto his radar yet.  The same could be said for any number of other people of good will from that time.