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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE October 7, 2011 •
www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com
LGBT History Month
October is LGBT History Month. As part of this celebration of our heritage, honoring those who have come before and their efforts, the Gay People's Chronicle is proud to join with dozens of other newspapers and magazines across the country in presenting a month of special features highlighting notable LGBT people throughout history.
This year, these features focus on people who have had an impact on the formation of our nation. There will be no singers, no actors, no celebrities. This year's theme is "We Are America," discussing how LGBT people and their allies formed a more perfect union, a promise equality advocates strive to fulfill every day.
The American Revolution was fought, as has every war since in this nation's history, by LGBT people among their heterosexual contemporaries. These are their stories, and their revolution continues to this day.
We start, however, with Abraham Lincoln's predecessor in the White House, and the man who served for six weeks as vice president under Franklin Pierce.
James Buchanan: America's first gay president?
by Timothy Cwiek
NATIONAL GAY HISTORY PROJECT
More than 150 years before America elected its first black president, Barack Obama, it most likely had its first gay president, James Buchanan (17911868).
Buchanan, a Democrat from Lancaster County, Pa., was the 15th president of the United States, and a lifelong bachelor. He served as president from 1857-61, tumultuous years leading up to the Civil War.
Historian James W. Loewen has done extensive research into Buchanan's personal life, and he's convinced Buchanan was gay.
Loewen is the author of "Lies Across America," which examines how historical sites inaccurately portray figures and events in America's past.
"I'm sure that Buchanan was gay," Loewen said. "There is clear evidence that he was gay. And since I haven't seen any evidence that he was heterosexual, I don't believe he was bisexual."
According to Loewen, Buchanan shared a residence with William Rufus King, a Democratic senator from Alabama, for several years in Washington, D.C. [see adjacent story on King]. Loewen said contemporary records indicate the two men were inseparable, and wags would refer to them as "the Siamese twins."
Loewen also said Buchanan was "fairly open" about his relationship with King, causing some colleagues to view the men as a couple.
For example, Aaron Brown, a prominent Democrat, writing to Mrs. James K. Polk, referred to King as Buchanan's "better half," "his wife" and "Aunt Fancy. rigged out in her best clothes."
In 1844, when King was appointed minister to France, he wrote Buchanan,
"I am selfish enough to hope you will not be able to procure an associate who will cause you to feel no regret at our separation.'
Loewen also said a letter Buchanan wrote to a friend after King went to France shows the depth of his feeling for King.
"I am now solitary and alone, having no companion in the house with me," Buchanan wrote. "I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."
Loewen said their relationship-though interrupted due to foreign-service obligations-ended only with King's death in 1853.
In the late 1990s, Loewen visited Wheatland, the mansion in Lancaster, Pa., where Buchanan spent his later years.
staffer's suggestion that the brief engagement to Coleman proved Buchanan was heterosexual.
Loewen said Buchanan showed little interest in Coleman, appeared more interested in her fortune, and possibly contributed to her suicide due to his emotional detachment. Patrick Clarke, the director of
James Buchanan
Loewen said he asked a staffer at Wheatland if Buchanan was gay, and the reply was: "He most definitely was not."
Loewen said the staffer pointed to a portrait of Ann Coleman, the daughter of a wealthy iron maker, whom Buchanan was engaged to briefly 1819-shortly before she committed suicide.
However, Loewen scoffed at the
William Rufus King:
First gay U.S. vice president?
by Lou Chibbaro Jr.
NATIONAL GAY HISTORY PROJECT
William Rufus DeVane King, the 13th United States vice president, has the distinction of having served in that office for less time than any other vice president.
He died of tuberculosis on April 18, 1853, just 25 days after being sworn into office on March 24, according an official biography of King prepared by the Office of the Historian of the U.S. Senate.
Other historians have speculated that King holds yet another distinction: the likely status of being the first gay U.S. vice president and possibly one of the first gay members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
King (1786-1853) served in the House of Representatives from North Carolina for six years beginning in 1811 and later served in the Senate from the newly-created state of Alabama from 1819-44, when he became U.S. minister to France.
He returned to the Senate four years later, in 1848, where he served until December 1852, when he resigned after winning election in November 1852 as vice president on
William Rufus King
the ticket of Franklin Pierce.
A lifelong bachelor, King lived for 15 years in the home of future U.S. president
Wheatland, said the staff now takes a neutral stance on Buchanan's sexual or affectional preference.
"There's no solid proof that Buchanan was heterosexual, nor is there solid proof that he was homosexual," Clarke said. "If we ever come up with a continued on page 10
James Buchanan while the two served in the Senate. Buchanan, also a lifelong bachelor, is believed by some historians to be the nation's first gay president.
"They certainly didn't have the word gay back then," said Paul F. Boller Jr., professor emeritus of history at Texas Christian University and author of several books on presidential politics, including the book "Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush."
In a telephone interview, Boller said Washington insiders at the time speculated over whether King and Buchanan's well-known close friendship had evolved into a romantic relationship.
"I don't think the word homosexual was used either," Boller said. "So they'd sort of use the term 'a little feminine' and all of that." Boller and historian Jean H. Baker, professor of history at Maryland's Goucher College and author of a biography of Buchanan, each cite reports that President Andrew Jackson referred to King as "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy." Aaron V. Brown, who became U.S.
continued on page 10