I’ve read, mostly on the Internet, that our 15th and only bachelor President, James Buchanan, was gay. I have no problem with that, but I’m curious: What evidence is there to support these claims? Membership cards at gay bathhouses? Love letters to Henry Clay?
There is plenty of evidence, however, that Buchanan was an embarrasing presidential failure, and his stewardhip of the United States during the crucial period that led to our Civil War bordered upon treasonous. One more thing: Supposedly (according to another web site) tour guides at Buchanan’s home in Pennslyvania dodge the “Gay Issue.” Presumably they do accept questions such as this: “Why was Buchanan such as crappy President?” What gives?
I’m sure he was most presidents, quite gay at his inauguration (dancing, giving speeches, surrounded by friends), but increasingly somber as his term wore on. As the impending Civil War loomed, I would think that he was not at all gay, but quite despondant. I do remember some quote to the effect that he was quite gay to be leaving the office, and he told Lincoln as much. Whether Lincoln was as gay upon taking the office as Buchanan was to be leaving it, history doesn not record.
A quick check of Google shows that the reason he’s alleged to have been gay is because (1) he never got married and (2) he had a close friend who was male. People’s imaginations did the rest.
Just speculation, but there were rumors that he and a Congressman (not Clay - William Rufus DeVane King) were lovers. Here’s what is known. Buchanan and King were really, really good friends and (for a while) roommates. King was considered effeminate, so much so that other politicans, including Andrew Jackson, referred to him as “Miss Nancy.” The only serious relationship Buchanan had with a woman ended badly, for reasons unknown, as Buchanan had his personal papers relating to the matter destroyed after his death. That’s really all there is to support the proposition that Buchanan was homosexual, and, looking back at it, it’s not much at all.
Buchanan and King had planned to run for office as President and VP in 1852, but Pierce won the Presidential nomination instead. King was his Vice President, but died of tuberculosis a few months into his term. For an interesting biography of W. R. D. King and all the other Vice Presidents, check out Bland Ambition by Steve Tally.
Regarding “projection of our social climate onto the past”, I’d say that this comment might also apply to the idea of being “gay” itself. As I mentioned in a soon-to-be-revived GD thread, I’m not at all convinced that the blanket designation of “gay” is something that Buchanan and his contemporaries would have even understood, much less subscribed to. I regard the term as a modern invention, a contrived label much like “Hispanic” that has no real substance but is maintained mainly for the sake of having a convenient political shorthand. Since we seemed to reach an agreement in that thread that being “gay” is a matter of self-identity, I’d say that no, even though Buchanan might have had some preference for boys over girls, he was most definitely not “gay”.