True or not, it doesn't matter. Which is what you said yourself, OP, but something I feel should be reiterated.

I agree. I meant it in the sense that it doesn't impact Lincoln or what he did. Some people will attempt to paint him in a bad light if he was ever definitively proven to be gay. I meant it as "it doesn't matter what his orientation was, his legacy is his legacy".

I think it matters. Grade school history classes barely, if ever, mention gay people's role in history, it's just kind of assumed that everybody who ever mattered was straight. Providing good role models for everyone, white, black, male, female, straight, gay, is an important things schools do

I agree. As I stated above, I meant it more in the sense that being gay or straight doesn't change his legacy. But you make a good point, in that it is important to make sure we don't paint history in monotones. As someone who has always been passionate about history, it's always been part and parcel I've found. For instance- the Greeks and their Pederasty, Alexander the Great, the Spartans, Hadrian, etc.

Agreed. I was racking my brain and I was trying to remember if anyone gay was mentioned in my grade school years. The only thing I remembered was the pederasty. That was decades ago. Hopefully they're giving a broader view these days.

Gzuuuuss they taught you about Greek kiddy diddlers in grade school? I think I had to get the internet before I found out most of that kind of stuff...sheltered childhood I suppose.

lol, yeah that's the problem with the education system - they don't train small children to attach their egos to mythological representations of historical figures enough

Grade school history classes barely, if ever, mention gay people's role in history

"gay" people did not exist before the concept of homosexuality was invented

Come for the feel good "Classical Liberal" stories about the closeted gays having disproportionate influence in civilization, but stay for the uncomfortable truth whopper tales when you learn that Solon, the Great Ancient Greek Sage, who invented Democracy, who Freed the Slaves and who Jubileed'd all Debts in Athens, was exclusively life-long a pedophile who never married, never had kids and only had sex with young boys.

Lincoln was a terrible person who almost destroyed this country.

"This country" wouldn't exist without Lincoln. It was the slaver scum who almost destroyed it.

You know what he wanted to do with the slaves?

Free tickets...

Pretty problematic looking back on it after all the propaganda we've been fed about the great emancipator.

Release them from their chains?

Ever heard of Liberia?

He probably doesn't. His history book and incompetent teacher merely told him Lincoln freed the slaves. Left out the part about sending them to Liberia.

War of Northern aggression.

You are wrong. He did destroy the country.

Touche!

Gaybraham Lincolon. Never heard of em'.

He did like his "wrestling". :p. I suspect W. Wilson was gay and the bankers used that blackmail against him to get the Fed passed.

I heard that you have to rub his golden nose once a week or else.

I read something about this not long ago but it wasn't a wiki. Very interesting stuff. Had no idea.

i am torn between two responses, so will give both:

response the first

ascribing "homosexuality" to abraham lincoln is anachronistic

he may or may not have engaged in sexual activity with other men, but the linking of sexual activity to intrinsic personal identity is an innovation of the modern age; one might as well ask whether titus flavius was a nazi because he persecuted jews

response the second

if lincoln loved speed, he was probably gay

Wasn't this an American Dad episode? When Stan makes a play about Abe Lincoln being gay? Another show created and produced by Seth Macfarlane....

You should see the play Lincoln Lover by Stan Smith. Powerful stuff. Endorsed by the Log Cabin Republicans if I recall.

It's easy to assume that he was gay with that effeminate picture in the thumbnail but that is, in fact, his wife.