Makg Montgomery Clift: tth behd gay self-loathg myth – The Irish Tim

Contents:

• LETTERS SHOW MONTY AS 'REPRSED GAY'
• MAKG MONTGOMERY CLIFT: TTH BEHD GAY SELF-LOATHG MYTH
• AN OPENLY GAY MAN RUNS THE ARMY

LETTERS SHOW MONTY AS 'REPRSED GAY'

"So creed Field Marshal Montgomery as he urged the Hoe of Lords not to legalise gay sex and warned that the 1967 homosexualy bill would be a "charter for buggery" than 30 years on, the gay age of nsent has been equalised to 16, homosexuals are allowed to serve the ary - and Bra's most famo wartime general has been outed as a reprsed homosexual who had "quasi love affairs" wh boys and men, acrdg to a new Full Monty, by his official bgrapher, Nigel Haton, claims that Montgomery felt passnately about fellow soldiers and boys, some not yet their teens.

"Don't fet homosexualy was outlawed om 1885 to 1967. He was extremely worried by , and psychologilly that suggts the law had been an sential ctch his stggle wh his own homosexual feelgs. "I served unr Montgomery the Middle East and I have absolutely no evince whatsoever of reprsed, or any other kd, of homosexualy.

MAKG MONTGOMERY CLIFT: TTH BEHD GAY SELF-LOATHG MYTH

In 1992 his bgrapher Lawrence Jam scribed as a "homoerotic fantasy", but said Lawrence was homosexual his later years. William ShakpeareEver sce Osr Wil claimed the Elizabethan playwright was love wh a boy actor, Willie Hew, crics have claimed he was gay - relyg on his sons for jtifitn. Leonardo da VciThe ultimate renaissance man has long been held to be gay, and 1476 he was tried and acquted of sodomy.

Although Montgomery profsed to be homophobic, at least one bgrapher is nvced Montgomery was gay and there is a documented relatnship that he had wh a 12 year old Swiss boy. Fally, while a possible relatnship wh an unrage boy would be problematic, if Montgomery was ed homosexual and had any relatnships wh other nsentg adult men, that by self should no way dimish his reputatn as a soldier, given that history is full of exampl of formidable soldiers who also happened to be homosexuals. WAS Monty gay?

The subject has arisen yet aga bee his bgrapher, Nigel Haton - the urse of publicisg a life of the Field Marshal slightly facetly entled The Full Monty - has said that Montgomery only reprsed his urg bee of the two years' hard labour that a nvictn for homosexual acts then rried. The qutn Haton is really posg now is not whether Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alame was gay, but whether he was a reprsed paedophile. Along wh John Pollock's excellent new bgraphy of Kchener, which dismissed accatns of homosexualy agast the great Victorian soldier, this might at last be the time to lay to rt the bilatg myth that the many asexuals who helped build the Brish Empire were really reprsed homosexuals.

AN OPENLY GAY MAN RUNS THE ARMY

Historians such as the foremost experts on the subject of sexualy and empire, Profsor Ronald Hyam, argue that "the term homosexualy remas a false and vulgar label when applied to dividuals such as Kchener or Montgomery". Ined, one of his few rerd remarks on the subject, the 1965 bate on the Wolfenn Report's proposals for reformg the laws on homosexualy, Montgomery suggted an age of nsent of 80.

Although this has been scribed as "a psychologil stratagem" signed to ver "impermissible erotic wish by exaggerated reactn agast them", is not equally likely that he spised and was disgted by homosexualy? Rhos, another man whom televisn documentari and revisnist bgraphi like to portray as homosexual, once said that he uld not get married bee he had too much work to do.

If the lifelong pany of a woman was very far down his agenda, and he found them irratg, why mt be assumed that he was homosexual?