Yeah, that's what I keep saying -- not only about same sex marriage (or "gay marriage" for those who demand inexactitude), but about the whole issue of tolerance for homosexuals.

Ridiculous as it may be to consider starting a civil war over these things, at the rate things are going with certain scholars on the left and the right, the "gay issue" will be a dagger aimed at the very heart of any and all future discussions of the American Civil War. That's because the simmering debate over whether Abraham Lincoln was homosexual is becoming a raging debate. For both "sides," it matters greatly.

I think it matters too much. Way too much.

At the outset, let me admit my bias. I think the private sex life of Abraham Lincoln -- regardless of what it might have been -- was and is wholly irrelevant to the much greater questions of the Civil War, of slavery, and his place in history.

I realize that this puts me at odds with the sexually obsessive nature of this country. It's inescapable that once a meme like this gets going in the collective mind of an ignorant, media-programmed, sexually preoccupied public, why, they might not ever look at a five dollar bill the same way again!

(Whew! Such a thing might even have a devastating impact on petty civilian economic activities.... Ah, yes, I can hear it now! In fact, I see it now, in the form of a Google phrase, "Queer as a five dollar bill?" And to think I imagined I'd come up with an original phrase.)

Anyway, the book itself, C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, has generated a firestorm of controversy. Leading critics assembled by the Claremont Institute make a reasonable case that the book's central premise is hokum, but the story is everywhere with countless textual tidbits like this poem by Lincoln fed up for public consumption:

I will tell you a Joke about Jewel and Mary

It is neither a Joke nor a Story

For Rubin and Charles has married two girls

But Billy has married a boy

The girlies he had tried on every Side

But none could he get to agree

All was in vain he went home again

And since that is married to Natty

So Billy and Natty agreed very well

And mama’s well pleased at the match

The egg it is laid but Natty’s afraid

The Shell is So Soft that it never will hatch

But Betsy she said you Cursed bald head

My Suitor you never Can be

Beside your low crotch proclaims you a botch

And that never Can serve for me

Much, for example, is made of Lincoln's unhappy marriage -- but considering his wife's documented mental illness (and the fact that very few people liked her), I think that provides pitifully poor evidence of his sexual tastes one way or another.

There's also plenty of apparently incriminating evidence to titillate modern readers:

It also includes a diary excerpt by one upper-class Washington woman who wrote of Derickson: 'There is a Bucktail soldier here devoted to the President, drives with him, and when Mrs L is not home, sleeps with him. What stuff!'

Scholars have long debated Lincoln's sexuality, and as early as the 1920s were making veiled references to his relationship with Speed. However, critics say that in the pioneer days men sleeping together in rough circumstances was not uncommon.

Now Tripp has discovered letters between Lincoln and Speed which supposedly betray a deep intimacy.

And it would be surprising to find any such evidence -- regardless of whether or not Lincoln had been a secret criminal "sodomite." (Yes, in Lincoln's time, illogical and vague terms like "sodomite" and "the unspeakable crime against nature" were standard legal lexicon for homosexual sex acts -- whether per os or per anum). I don't think it requires much imagination to grasp that Lincoln -- a shrewd lawyer -- would have been well aware of the elements of these criminal offenses, and would have had the common sense (if not political acumen) to avoid admitting to them in any writing. Especially if he did them!

Now, putting aside all communitarian considerations of whether the sex life of this one man would wreck the republic (a tough sell for some, I know), let us assume for the sake of argument that Lincoln did have some sexual relations with men. We already know that he had sexual relations with women, as he sired a number of children (and artificial insemination wasn't available in those days). So assuming he had sex with men too, how would that make him gay? Gore Vidal, long a theoretician of Lincoln's sexual non-conformity, sees him as bisexual (although along with Tripp he debunks his much-touted heterosexual affair with Ann Rutledge).

Scholar Allen C. Guelzo feels differently:

....as Richard Taruskin once remarked (in a review of several books on Tchaikovsky), in the 19th century, homosexuality did not "essentialize" a person, "did not typecast, or stereotype, or render one's nature darkly and irrevocably Other." Homosexuality was regarded as a vice, and particularly an upper-class one, but it was no more revealing about one's behavior or emotional life than any other form of libertinage. That makes it even more unlikely that a strait-laced, teetotaling, bourgeois male like Lincoln would have found anything even passably interesting in 19th-century homosexuality. And it underscores how completely the idea that sexuality is the key to Lincoln's "intimate world" is a product of Tripp's culture, not to mention Tripp's own personal and professional inclinations, rather than Lincoln's.

[Prohibition] goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

His "strait-laced" libertarianism aside, so far as I know, Lincoln was never quoted one way or another on "sodomy" -- but again, he probably had enough common sense to recognize that some things went on which you just didn't (or couldn't) discuss. I realize this sheds little light on his sexual tastes, but I don't think any more of a solid case can be made about what he may not have done than about what he may have done.

It should be noted parenthetically that the Claremont Institute has been accused of being highly emotional about Lincoln -- to the point of resorting to ad hominem attacks on dissenting historians. Now, while I'm not about to embroil myself in a defense of DiLorenzo (or his Lincoln book), if his characterizations of the animus are true, I think the emotions might be grounded in an irreconcilable disconnect arising out of Lincoln's undisputed greatness. (It may boil down to this position: if Lincoln was in any way tainted by the slightest sign of homosexuality or bisexuality, then because homosexuality is an inherent evil, Lincoln cannot have been a great man. I suspect that any imputation of homosexuality to any proven great man would be considered a Christopher Hitchens-style "denigration of political greatness" which is "an essential aspect of radical ideology." This makes Lincoln's homosexuality impossible by definition. Otherwise, in the eyes of those who define greatness and homosexuality as mutually exclusive, American civilization -- and the entire West -- must fall. Much as I consider this absurd, there's no escaping the fact that there are people who think this way -- but it's a reason why I started this blog. There are too many great men in history to allow such petty, medieval-minded smears to go unchallenged, I reasoned.)

This is all so contentious and pointless that I wonder what prompts me to write posts like this. But the fact is, the Claremont piece came to me in the mail, and one of my weaknesses is that it's tough to ignore things that are physically in front of me.

Which is not to say that I'm at all impressed by the evidence. At best, the case for Lincoln's homosexuality is a circumstantial one. And even that circumstantial evidence is being taken out of context. Hard as it might be for contemporary Americans to understand, in the 19th century, men routinely slept together without having sex. (When I toured Andrew Jackson's Hermitage residence, I was suprised to learn that in his lonely old age, he'd put up dozens of houseguests at a time -- with as many as seven men being forced to share a single bed. Something retired presidents other than possibly Bill Clinton simply would not do today.)

Lincoln (who had a known mischievous streak), had a penchant for flowery language, and it is not surprising at all that such references in his letters might lend themselves to a sexual interpretation today.

The bottom line is that this is unknowable and unprovable, and I am wondering why it matters. One thing is clear: sexual relations were not discussed, and the taboo on homosexuality during Lincoln's time was so strong that its occurrence would have been unsuspected and unmentioned. Remember, this was long before even Oscar Wilde described homosexuality as "the love that dare not speak its name." If it happened, it happened, but no one was the wiser, and I can easily imagine that sexual encounters took place which would be shrouded with complete denial -- never to be acknowledged by either partner. (Something very tough to understand today, unless we look at the Mideast, where homosexuality is not considered homosexuality unless it is admitted.) In any case, there's nothing "gay" about it by modern standards.

So why the need to out a dead man without genuine, uncontestable evidence? Is there a self esteem movement by gay activists along lines similar to the "Africanizing" of ancient culture? If so, I think it's dishonest and only likely to create insecurity. Because, at best, what they have done (in the case of Lincoln and other great historical figures similarly "outed") is to create as "gay role models" people who were not known to be homosexual, who never said they were homosexual, and whose homosexuality is debatable.

What kind of role model is that? A role model for staying in the closet, if anything. So why would gay activists promote it?

Anyway, I don't think the Lincoln-was-gay case has been proven at all, although the intriguing details which have been uncovered certainly assist with our knowledge of the man's complexities. Of course, Lincoln's status as one of history's great men remains unchanged by any reasonable standard. Still, I wonder whether the human tendency to enjoy salacious gossip, coupled with the usual American adolescent focus on things like homosexuality, might cause people to put largely irrelevant historical details ahead of what's important.

But alas! Political activists always seem to set the ground rules for what is considered important.

But that's the Culture War.

It's always lots of no fun.

AFTERTHOUGHT: It must be remembered that the laissez faire position on private sexual matters (that a thing like homosexuality should not matter) is actually a greater threat to the moral collectivist philosophy than that of the gay activists. That is because the latter at least agree with their sworn enemies on one thing: homosexuality does matter.

The gay activists (especially the more unsavory of them) are thus seen as America's last and best hope for preserving some sort of stigma.