The gay and bisexual muny of Ameri pre-dat Columb – and ntu to shape the natn. Why isn't acknowledged? Johann Hari argu that 's time for the activists to e om the margs
Contents:
WAS CHRISTOPHER COLUMB GAY
* was christopher columbus gay *
Sign up to our Eveng Headl email for your daily gui to the latt newsSign up to our ee US Eveng Headl emailThe Amerin right prents homosexualy as somethg alien to the Amerin experience – an tr that explibly gate-crashed Ameri 1969 the form of a rtg drag queen clutchg a high heel her fist as a weapon. For people who talk csantly about honourg Amerin history, they have built a historil picture of their untry that n only be staed by scbbg clean of a signifint part of the populatn and everythg they brought to the party (if not the Tea Party) his new book, A Queer History of the Uned Stat, the cultural cric Michael Bronski ns the film backward, through 500 years of Amerin life, showg there were gays and bisexuals every scene, makg and remakg Ameri.
They were among some of the untry's great ins, om Ey Dickson to Calamy Jane to perhaps even Abraham Lln and Eleanor rtg drag queens of the Stonewall Inn arrive only on page 210 of a 250-page book that argu gay people weren't merely prent at every stage – they had a historil missn Ameri.
Yet a strange and disagreeable turn, Bronski nclus that the fal act of this story, gays have en masse abandoned their missn by mandg the most domtic and Puran goal of all: monogamo gay alternative to Puran Ameri began before the first whe settler ever arrived. The day before Christopher Columb set foot North Ameri, was a safer place for gay people than was ever gog to be aga for several limed-but-sturdy evince provid by historians that Bronski draws on suggts homosexualy was treated matter-of-factly among most Native Amerin trib. One tribe "accepted" homosexualy by raisg young men to be "passiv", available as "sexual rourc" to the tribe, which sounds unfortably close to rape.