Was Jam Buchanan the First Gay Print?

Contents:

• WHO WAS OUR FIRST GAY PRINT?
• OPN AMERI HAS ALREADY HAD A GAY PRINT
• AMERI'S ONLY BACHELOR PRINT MAY HAVE BEEN ITS ONLY GAY ONE
• NEWSWEEK VER: OBAMA ‘FIRST GAY PRINT’
• BARACK OBAMA: ‘THE FIRST GAY PRINT’?
• WAS JAM BUCHANAN AMERI’S FIRST GAY PRINT?
• PETE BUTTIGIEG SAYS THERE HAVE PROBABLY BEEN GAY PRINTS. HERE'S WHY THAT THEORY IS COMPLITED

WHO WAS OUR FIRST GAY PRINT?

Google Jam Buchanan and you evably disver the assertn that Amerin history has clared him to be the first gay print. It don’t take much longer to disver that the popular unrstandg of Jam Buchanan as our natn’s first gay print riv om his relatnship wh one man particular: William Ruf DeVane Kg of Alabama.

Was each man “gay, ” or somethg else?

And why do Amerins seem fixated on makg Buchanan our first gay print? In the sh to make new meang of the past, I have e to unrstand why today has bee rigr to nsir Buchanan our first gay print.

OPN AMERI HAS ALREADY HAD A GAY PRINT

But by then, an unrstandg of homosexualy as a sexual inty and orientatn had begun to take hold among the general public. The media soon ught wd of the ia that we may have had a “gay print. ” In the November 1987 issue of Penthoe Magaze, New York gossip lumnist Sharon Churcher noted the fdg an article headled “Our First Gay Print, Out of the Closet, Fally.

Updike creatively imaged the boardghoe life of Buchanan and Kg, but he admted to fdg few “trac of homosexual passn. This leav today wh the popular nceptn of Jam Buchanan as our first gay print.

Centuri of reprsn of homosexualy the Uned Stat has erased untls number of Amerins om the story of LGBT history. More than anythg else, this impulse explas why Amerins have transformed Jam Buchanan to our first gay print.

AMERI'S ONLY BACHELOR PRINT MAY HAVE BEEN ITS ONLY GAY ONE

Worse still, movg Buchanan and Kg om iends to lovers blocks the way for a person today to assume the proper mantle of beg our first gay print. You may have seen the other ntroversial newsmagaze ver this week, the one where Newsweek dubbed Print Obama “The First Gay Print“.

But as Jim Loewen at the History News Network would like to remd , even if Obama were gay, he wouldn’t be the first: more than 150 years before the Uned Stat had s first black print, had s first homosexual manr chief. (MORE: Gay Marriage the Swg Stat: Where Will Obama’s ‘Evolutn’ Matter? Loewen is one of several historians who believe that Jam Buchanan, who served om 1857 to 1861, was fact our first gay print.

(MORE: In Gay Marriage Reversal, Print Obama Fac Risk on All Sis).

NEWSWEEK VER: OBAMA ‘FIRST GAY PRINT’

And while Loewen not that Obama’s stance on gay marriage is a wele parture om our recent past, to tout morn Amerin society as more tolerant than any our history is a claim that has yet to pass the tt of time. The tete-a-tete found their letters is among the most tertg I have seen om policians of this you, as a scholar, have reason to believe or spect that eher Buchanan or Kg was gay or bisexual? The classifitn of heterosexualy and homosexualy as sexual orientatns do not bee wispread until the end of the 19th century.

I adm that the kd of answer we want is elive -- gay, bisexual, straight -- and I am hant to impose a ntemporary worldview on 19th century social relatns... By this lens, I don't see the evince for Buchanan beg eher gay or bisexual, and I generally read him as "straight-actg, straight-lookg, " spe the claims of others who thk him clearly to be gay. I thk we stand on firmer ground wh Kg, about whom the evince suggts that he was gay.

BARACK OBAMA: ‘THE FIRST GAY PRINT’?

That this half of the rrponnce (Buchanan to Kg) do not survive is unfortunate, but has more to do wh Kg as a rerd keeper and the ravaged state of post-war Alabama than anythg "emotnally non-heterosexual, " I take that you mean homoerotic. “If elected, you would be the first openly gay print of the Uned Stat, ” Stephen Colbert said to Pete Buttigieg after the mayor of South Bend, Ind., clared his ndidacy. While the characterizatn of beg openly gay or “out” is relatively new, the fact is the Uned Stat has already had a gay print whose ntemporari knew : Jam Buchanan.

Ined, the Uned Stat has also had a gay vice print and, maybe more surprisgly, a gay senator om stunts takg U. Andrew Jackson referred to Kg as “Miss Nancy”— a phemism for a gay ntemporari lled Kg Buchanan’s “better half, ” and one ngrsman referred to him as “Mrs. ” All this would be que peculiar if Buchanan was not gay.

WAS JAM BUCHANAN AMERI’S FIRST GAY PRINT?

At most uld suggt Buchanan was not openly discsg this moment, we fet that beg gay the mid-19th century did not tomatilly exclu a man om natnal learship. The ia that some people, cludg policians and social lears, are gay was not news or shockg to our forefathers.

S., sorry, Pete Buttigieg, you n’t aim to be the first gay print, although you uld be the first married gay print. There has never been an openly gay print of the Uned Stat, but some historians have argued that Jam Buchanan, the only print who never shared the Whe Hoe wh a first lady, may have had feelgs for a member of the same sex.

PETE BUTTIGIEG SAYS THERE HAVE PROBABLY BEEN GAY PRINTS. HERE'S WHY THAT THEORY IS COMPLITED

It would not have been unual, nor would have proved Buchanan not to have been gay, if they had married; history is filled wh homosexual men who married straight women.

Jam Loewen, a proment Amerin soclogist and historian, has been outspoken his claims that Buchanan was the first gay print, wrg a 2012 say:. "There n be no doubt that Jam Buchanan was gay, before, durg, and after his four years the Whe Hoe.

Loewen has argued that Buchanan's homosexualy is not often discsed morn tim bee Amerins do not want to believe that society was more tolerant of gay relatnships the 19th century than they are now. Although has long been mored that Richard Nixon had a homosexual affair wh his close iend Bebe Rebozo, Buchanan is still the most likely ndidate for first, and only, gay Amerin print.