According to historians, sharing a bed with another man and having physical intimacy was normal in the 1800s – before views on homosexuals took a turn for the worse. Clearly, I was born in the wrong century because that sounds like a great time… unless you’re former president Abraham Lincoln, who lived his life as a closeted gay man if the new documentary Lover of Men is to be taken as fact.
Lover of Men, from director Shaun Peterson, is now in theaters and it’s about to get history buffs, the LGBT community and citizens amped about the upcoming election talking around the watercooler. If offices have watercoolers these days. The documentary takes an in depth look at Abraham Lincoln’s personal life and suspected gay relationships that have been brushed under the carpet.
Potential relationships with various figures including Billy Greene, Joshua Speed, Elmer Ellsworth and David Derickson are put under a magnifying glass. Told through certified real letters, testimonies from the time, expert analysis, narrative reenactments, never seen before photos and more, Lover of Men attempts to paint the picture that Lincoln was, well, a lover of men – or at least bisexual.
Examples that the 16th President of the United States was gay or bisexual include: living together with other men despite making a good salary, sharing beds and nightshirts with men, intimate letters that can be interpreted as innuendos for something deeper, letters about having anxiety about sleeping with women and sharing his bed with random men when his wife, Mary Todd, was away.
Lover of Men even asserts that Lincoln used to write fake letters to his male companions that had secret love letters written behind them. It’s like turning off the sound effect on Grindr, really.
Lincoln’s rumored sexuality has been an intriguing subject for some time, having already been profiled in a 2005 Vanity Fair article, C.A. Tripp’s The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (2006) and John Stauffer’s Giants (2008).
I don’t think we’ll ever truly know if Honest Abe was a member of the LGBT community. Was the president who abolished slavery also the first gay president? It’s fun to theorize and talk about, but – same with the internet – anything can be taken out of context! I do know I’ll be watching, though. Will you?
If you’d like to purchase your tickets to Lover of Men in advance, get them on Fandango so the proceeds can go to The Human Rights Campaign.
Source: Yahoo, Film’s Official Website