Was Lincoln Gay? Photographic Evidence!

http://www.iSteve.com/05JanA.htm#was.lincoln.gay

Reviewing the Was Lincoln Gay?" controversy, Across Difficult Country writes:

Should his portrait instead be on the three dollar bill?

Was Abraham Lincoln a homosexualist? According to a new book by written by C.A. Tripp, he was. Tripp is himself a homosexualist (a coincidence) and at one time was a researcher for the ‘sex scientist’ Alfred Kinsey... For the sake of history, let’s examine the facts on both sides:

Evidence he was: Lincoln shared his bed with the captain of his bodyguards, David Derickson. Lincoln was often seen frequenting a popular public restroom in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington DC. Lincoln loved the theater. Young Lincoln was often referred to as ‘the rail-splitter’ (I don’t know what that means exactly, but it sure sounds kind of queer).

Evidence he wasn’t: What sort of homosexualist would appear in public looking like this?

Good question. (The uncropped photo is even funnier.)

More seriously, it's hard to take these allegations as evidence of much of anything since the proponents of the theory have yet to bring forward any contemporary evidence that a single one of Lincoln's millions of passionate political enemies had ever accused him of homosexuality. In contrast, for example, it was widely rumored at the time that Sally Hemmings' children were fathered by President Jefferson.

Without TV back then, people spent a lot of time recounting personal gossip, so rumors would have spread.

A reader comments:

I haven't read the book , but after reading some comments about it on the blogosphere, it seems to me some of the arguments the book presents are very silly. Regarding the issue of sharing a bed with someone (a not uncommon practice at the time), let's remember that before the emergence of the gay rights movement, heterosexuals were far less reluctant to engage in non-sexual physical contact with other men than they would in today's time, when such behaviour would appear to look gay. That's certainly true in some institutions like the armed forces, where (not accidentally) gays were explicitly banned until just a few years ago. Liking the theater was also not exclusively a gay thing at the time (I think you have written about straight flight in your columns before). Writing bawdy poems about men marrying men hardly counts as gay behavior (how many heterosexuals make gay jokes today?). So what is left? an unhappy marriage?

Steve Sailer's homepage and blog is iSteve.com