# Was Audie Murphy Gay?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 8, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994 "2011-08-08T21:30:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/1 "2011-08-08T21:30:17Z")
I’m currently engaged in a brutal fight to the death on a different message board where one poster has stated that homosexuals can’t be ‘real men’. Utilising one of the traditional definitions of masculinity _(military prowess and personal bravery)_ I was going to cite Audie Murphy as a prime example of someone who was gay and also a ‘real man’, however on doing a little searching I’ve discovered that it may not be as straightforward as that and he may not in fact have been gay.
I’m a little surprised as this is one of those facts I was sure of but may in fact be incorrect.
Anyone know what the real story is?
Tanks in advance! 😃
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### Author:  [@Sarabellum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarabellum)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/2 "2011-08-08T21:33:31Z")
Well, to my knowledge, Murphy was married (to women) at least twice, and fathered children.
So even if he DID have sex with guys, and you could reasonably prove it, the most you could peg him at would be bisexual.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/3 "2011-08-08T21:33:38Z")
There really doesn’t seem to be any proof that he was gay. And I think if he was, his name would have come up a _lot_ more in the many, many public debates about gays in the military in recent years.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/4 "2011-08-08T21:34:29Z")
I don’t know about Murphy, but the Spartans were as stereotypically “manly” as it gets, and routinely formed same sex relationships.
Also, Alexander the Great was an alpha male’s alpha male and was totally into cock.
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### Author:  [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/5 "2011-08-08T21:41:46Z")
Just show your opponent this picture:
[ ](https://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee159/yevad1/VILLAGE_PEOPLE_1.jpg)
ETA: D & R
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### Author:  [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/6 "2011-08-08T21:43:19Z")
Julius Ceaser was bisexual and I believe he was a successful general.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/7 "2011-08-08T21:45:17Z")
I don’t know about Murphy, but I guess your friend wasn’t in [Chicago a couple weeks ago](http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/07/26/Chicago_To_Honor_Gay_Military_Vets/).
You’ll notice that one of the people pictured, Marquell Smith, was a Marine. A Marine sergeant to be exact. Maybe you’re friend could try out his “real men” theory on Smith.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/8 "2011-08-08T21:48:18Z")
Richard the Lionheart was primarily gay.
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### Author:  [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/9 "2011-08-08T21:57:33Z")
> [@kunilou](#):
>
> I don’t know about Murphy, but I guess your friend wasn’t in [Chicago a couple weeks ago](http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/07/26/Chicago_To_Honor_Gay_Military_Vets/).
>
> You’ll notice that one of the people pictured, Marquell Smith, was a Marine. A Marine sergeant to be exact. Maybe you’re friend could try out his “real men” theory on Smith.
He’s not my friend, I only met him the once, we were both a little drunk, and well, one thing led to another…wait, shit, delete, delete, delete! :eek:
Seriously though thanks for the answers everyone, I’m actually reeling a little because I thought the whole Audie Murphy = Gay thing was one of those facts that every fool knows…but apparently I’ve either been misinformed or made it up out of thin air _(which has been known to happen…)_
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/10 "2011-08-08T21:58:03Z")
I would really advise against using the historical examples of individual brave heroic men who were supposedly gay, just because it happened so long ago it’s damn hard to offer concrete proof of it. You’ll just get accused of speculation and wishful thinking. I think you should really try to stick to examples in the present day, in the world that we live in now.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/11 "2011-08-08T22:02:47Z")
Most modern examples are not going to be famous, though. They’re only going to be anecdotal which is much less effective than the classical examples.
Of course, the kind of person on the other end of this argument is never going to constantly shift goalposts and never concede an example anyway. The whole concept of “real man” is so nebulous and subjective as to be meaningless.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/12 "2011-08-08T22:04:42Z")
^
I agree and furthermore it is would be incorrect to place a modern and western understanding of sexuality on people who did not have the same.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/13 "2011-08-08T22:06:07Z")
You could just start singing “We will rock you” or “We are the champions” whenever this comes up. I think Queen has a lot more manly-cred than the Village People.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/14 "2011-08-08T22:06:30Z")
^
I agree and furthermore it is would be incorrect to place a modern and western understanding of sexuality on people who did not have the same.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/15 "2011-08-08T22:09:06Z")
[Billy Sipple](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Sipple), openly gay Marine who saved President Gerald Ford from assassination. There is nothing anecdotal about this. Tackling an armed would-be killer is about as much of a “real man” as you can be.
[Mark Bingham,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Bingham) rugby player and hero of Flight 93. Jesus, I can’t believe I’m the first person here to come up with these provable modern-day examples instead of scraping at ancient historical figures.
There is no way in hell the OP’s idiotic debate opponent can refute these guys.
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### Author:  [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/16 "2011-08-08T22:09:15Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> The whole concept of “real man” is so nebulous and subjective as to be meaningless.
Agreed, I asked him to define what he meant by his usage of the term and he seemed to be using a traditional definition of masculinity which is why I counter-attacked with the example of a homosexual military person, the armed forces being generally held to be a bastion of traditional masculine values.
Though I do realise that the whole topic of what is and is not masculine is opening a whole set of arguments of truly epic proportions.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/17 "2011-08-08T22:16:53Z")
I’ve never heard gay rumors about Murphy, but believe it or not there were people who questioned his masculinity when he made public his battle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (aka shell shock, battle fatigue, etc.), an extremely misunderstood condition in the 1960s.
Wiki list of famous [openly gay U.S. veterans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_LGBT_military_personnel). It is limited to those who either discussed their homosexuality or otherwise there’s no doubt about it.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/18 "2011-08-08T22:26:36Z")
Alexander the Great.
But perhaps you might challenge this person’s concept of what makes a “real man.” Someone who is not macho can still be a “real man.” And . . . perhaps we gays are more “real men” than straight guys. After all, our world revolves around other guys, and many of us don’t have a close relationship with anyone female. Perhaps he should consider the possibility that his life has more females in it than mine. So who’s the “real man” here?
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### Author:  [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/19 "2011-08-08T22:29:13Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#):
>
> I’m currently engaged in a brutal fight to the death on a different message board where one poster has stated that homosexuals can’t be ‘real men’.
Ask your friend to tell [Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach](http://sldn.3cdn.net/cbad53db19bd40ebe0_tvm6bn4g6.jpg) that he’s not a “real man” to his face.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-audie-murphy-gay/591994/20 "2011-08-08T22:31:24Z")
> [@gaffa](#):
>
> Ask your friend to tell [Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach](http://sldn.3cdn.net/cbad53db19bd40ebe0_tvm6bn4g6.jpg) that he’s not a “real man” to his face.
Those are definitely “very possibly the last eyes you’ll ever see” eyes.
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