Larry Kramer: George Washington Was Gay
If you don’t have a sense of humor, you might take all this too seriously. You’ve been warned.
AIDS activist, Larry Kramer, wrote a book. The publisher claims it’s a novel. Larry Kramer is calling it “history” and regardless of anything anyone might think it’s getting a whole shitload of attention in some places.
“In the case of Washington, he was a big queen, basically,” Kramer said. “He decorated everything. He designed all the uniforms, the buttons. The correspondence exists with all the dealers he dealt with in England to make everything. And then there was a man called Baron von Steuben, who was German, who designed all the maneuvers for all the troops of all the great armies in Europe. And he kept getting thrown out after he made the armies real – like Rockettes [laughs]. He got kicked out and he came to George. And he and George hit it off like nobody’s business.”
And there you are. Stereotypes and all. There are links that try to prove everything Kramer says. I haven’t read the book, I don’t plan to read it, and I can’t actively dispute any research Kramer did for the book.
Here’s another article about it from a reputable source quoting Kramer.
“I’m so tired of reading history books that don’t have anything about gay people in (them), when we know that there are so many famous people in the history of this country who were gay,” Kramer said.
I’ve written about “gays” in historic in novels, and posted about this on the blog time and again. First, there were no “gay” people prior to the 1970’s because “gay” was what you did when you danced, partied, or went on an Easter egg hunt. It meant you were having a good time.
I also wrote about what it was like back in the old wild west, with cowboys on ranches, and how young men were treated as almost sex slaves because there were no women around. From my post, which was not written to garner or exploit anyone now or in history. The source seems reliable.
Cowboys were heavily exploited and usually brutally treated until such time as they became able to beg, borrow, buy or steal a gun. They were used not only as cheap and disposable labor, but also for sexual release by older and stronger men. Such adult men used the pretext of a scarcity of women to establish enforced homosexual relationships in remote camps and ranches comparable to the relationships for which today’s prisons are notorious.
So there was definitely homosexuality throughout American History. That’s a given. President James Buchanan was allegedly homosexual, but it’s not widely covered, not now or in the time in which he lived. However, being that this topic was treated in such a taboo manner, and in most cases as a mental illness or a crime, you’re not going to get much solid proof that it ever even existed. And don’t forget about the shame. Which, of course, is the saddest part of this entire post for me. I researched the Edwardian era for anything I could get about same sex love for my story about the Titanic and found almost nothing.
Oh, and Kramer’s book…the e-book…is for sale on Amazon for $19.99. Yes, that’s $19.99 for an e-book. And according to the Amazon page, that is a price reduction from $40.00.
Rock Hudson’s True Love Speaks
Now this is the kind of LGBTI history I find fascinating. Someone who was actually there is speaking up about something…and he was there and it’s not just conjecture or hearsay designed to sell and exploit…or blow smoke up our asses.
Rock Hudson lived a double life, where he was every girl’s dream in the movies and in real life about as gay as it gets. That’s what he did to survive during a time when admitting he was “homosexual” would have ruined his entire life. Not just his brand or career; his life. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that under those circumstances you can’t blame the guy. At least I can’t.
In any event, Hudson had a lover, too, Lee Garlington. And now Garlington is speaking up about it…I think for the first time.
“He was a sweetheart,” Garlington, 77, tells People. “I adored him.”
Garlington was a film extra in 1962, and after hearing rumors about Hudson, decided to stage a meeting.
“He was the biggest movie star in the world and the rumors were that he was gay,” he says. “So I thought ‘Let me get an eye on him.’ I stood outside his cottage on the Universal lot, pretending to read Variety, which was probably upside down at the time. He walked out and down the street. He looked back once. That was it.”
You can read the rest here. It’s actually heartbreaking. I think we all know how Rock Hudson died. But what we’ll never fully understand is how he really lived.
Coffee Shop Owner Bans Anti-Gays
I’ve been wondering why something like this hasn’t happened sooner, especially with all these good Christians refusing to bake wedding cakes, refusing to do floral arrangements, and having crowdfunding campaigns to make money on discrimination.
But “it” has finally hit the fan. Well, at least in a humorous way. Here’s what one coffee shop owner in Fargo, ND, recently did.
To retaliate, Joe Curry (pictured), co-owner of the Red Raven Espresso Parlor, posted a sign outside his coffee shop dictating that all antigay lawmakers were banned from entering the establishment “unless accompanied by a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual, queer, intersex or asexual person.”
“The ban was, I thought, very tongue in cheek, requiring them to be escorted by someone from the LBGT community,” Curry told the Guardian. “I hope that they thought about it, at least, and I hope some of them giggled. But in the end, they are all welcome here.”
This is interesting to me, because of course it was done as a joke, and with the kind of intelligence we don’t usually see from the good Christian right bigots who ban gays for religious reasons. And that’s a basic, given fact: you can’t be dumb and funny. You can be smart and funny. But in order to get people to laugh with you and not at you have to know what you’re doing…like this coffee shop owner.
So far, I have yet to see one gay owned an operated business turn away one single person because he/she is a good Christian. If there are, please let me know.
You can read more here. Curry has removed the sign, but will put if up again if and when he feels it’s necessary.
