Was Booth a spurned lover?

Seems President Lincoln might have been gay. Scholars "cite his troubled marriage to Mary Todd and his youthful friendship with Joshua Speed, who shared his bed for four years. " So now anyone with a troubled marriage who moves in with a friend is gay? So now sexual orientation is something that can be ascribed over a hundred years after the fact, based on sketchy knowledge? Argh. I mean, who knows what turned him on? Determining exactly what Lincoln's friendships with men meant in the context of platonic male-male friendships of that era seems like a waste of time--a future scholar analyzing the dialogue of two young women in 2004 who call each other "girlfriend" might find himself going down the wrong path.

It's good, though, that the Times piece mentions this: "The question of Lincoln's sexuality is complicated by the fact that the word homosexual did not find its way into print in English until 1892 and that 'gayness' is very much a modern concept. " Now, while "gayness" is new, male-male attraction is not, and Lincoln might have been attracted to men, or might have just been living at a time when boundaries of personal space among same-sex friends were less rigid. Who can say? And, more importantly, how can it possibly matter for contemporary gay rights if Lincoln had such predilictions? He was not an "out" individual, he did not lead any sort of fight for gay marriage or civil unions. At most, he was into guys.

And yet, "Larry Kramer, the author and AIDS activist, said that Mr. Tripp's book [a new book on Lincoln's sexuality] 'will change history.'"

"'It's a revolutionary book because the most important president in the history of the United States was gay,' he said. 'Now maybe they'll leave us alone, all those people in the party he founded.'"

In his dreams, I'm afraid. More likely, contemporary Republican opponents of gay marriage and gay rights would, if they agreed that Lincoln was attracted to men, call this attraction a flaw, a weakness possessed by an otherwise remarkably strong man. I can't imagine an effect of, "If Lincoln was gay, then gays are great," resulting from the revelation.