Abraham Lincoln was not gay, no matter what playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer says — according to Harold Holzer, who’s written 35 books about our 16th president and the Civil War.
The subject came up in this week’s New York magazine story about Kramer — co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP — and his 4,000-page manuscript, “The American People,” which claims that George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Lewis and Clark and Lincoln were all homosexuals.
Kramer claimed that a diary and a stash of letters were found under the floorboards of a building where Lincoln had lived with his roommate and supposed lover, Joshua Speed.
But the article by Jesse Green noted, “Kramer isn’t interested in proof, or facts.” And Holzer, a historian who co-chaired this year’s Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, told Page Six: “I had a private conversation with him [Kramer]. He admitted to me that he made the whole thing up. He said he made it up to raise consciousness.”
Kramer evidently believes that Americans will be more supportive of gay rights if they think the Founding Fathers and other heroic historical figures were homosexuals.
“That he is reviving this hoax is a little bizarre,” said Holzer, whose day job is p.r. for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “For half his life, Lincoln shared his bed with other guys. It was the custom. People didn’t have so many beds.”
Young Lincoln traveled through Illinois following the circuit court and stayed in inns with other attorneys. “The only lawyer in central Illinois who didn’t sleep with other men was [Lincoln Supreme Court appointee] David Davis, and that was because he weighed 350 pounds,” Holzer said.
Holzer, who noted that Lincoln conceived a child on his wedding night, said of Kramer, “I wish he’d find something more productive to do.” Calls to Kramer were not returned.