Gay Today: World

Larry Kramer: "Abe Lincoln was Gay!"

Compiled By GayToday

Madison, Wisconsin—Addressing an audience of approximately 100 on Monday, Larry Kramer, controversial AIDS activist, author and playwright, gave it as his conclusion that Abraham Lincoln was—as the title of Kramer's lecture had explained-- "Our Gay President."

Local news stated Kramer's thesis thusly: "The 16th President of the United States has been 'outed.' "

Lincoln's lover, according to Kramer, was 24-year old Joshua Speed and their relationship began in earnest in 1839 when Lincoln was 28. It lasted through its most intense phase until 1842. Both men later married although they continued to care for each other, according to Kramer, but their marriages merely camouflaged their inner realities.

The Lincoln-Speed romance reportedly began, Kramer related, when a penniless Lincoln asked for lodging and then slept next to Speed whose seductive beauty appealed to him. It was Speed with whom Lincoln shared his most intimate thoughts over the years.

This Lincoln theory has been advanced by Larry Kramer in a manuscript on which he's currently at work, The American People, already 2,000 pages in length and purporting to be a homosexual view of American history.

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
Save Us Mr. Washington

Address at the Funeral of Walt Whitman

Related Sites:
The Lincoln Museum
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Quoting Joshua Speed's letters in reference to Lincoln, Kramer read to his Madison audience: "He often kisses me when I tease him, often to shut me up. . . . He would grab me up by his long arms and hug and hug.''

One of Speed's letter that Kramer quoted told how the later-to-be U.S. President felt hungry for affection: "Yes, our Abe is like a school girl,'' said Speed.