Bayard Rustin & Eleanor Roosevelt? GAY! GAY! GAY!

Well, probably bi in Eleanor's case, but I just thought it would be nice for there to be one friggin' thread in the history of DU that attributed homosexuality/bisexuality to someone we actually like, as opposed to all the extra-chromosome, knuckle-dragging, slope-browed fascist sons of bitches who are apparently the only ones suspected of being gay in these parts.

If anyone can think of any other good progressives who were or are gay, please feel free to name them here.

when it's not used to attack people.

Just as I suspected.

i absolutely love you for this thread : evilgrin :

or surprised that the whole subject loses its interest for so many when it is stripped of the usual snickering tone.

A great gay American!

How about Walt Whitman? No one ever loved the promise of American democracy more than he did.

One of my heroes from a long way back.

Allard Lowenstein, Kennedy family adviser who was killed in 1980, was married to a woman and had a family with her, but I believe he, too, was gay--or bi. He was not just a great politico, but a good man.

So I don't know who is, or is not, unless they come out. But personally, I wish that all positive role models who happen to be gay or bi, would come out. I did over 30 years ago, and for me it was no big deal. But I do understand that for many people, this is a HUGE deal, and is difficult for them.

I am proud to have him as one of us.

I read "Dreaming War" a couple of months back - first work of his I've read, believe it or not. He's a brilliant essayist - a bit on the gloomy side, in a matter-of-fact sort of way (as writers can be, I suppose), but brilliant. His political background was quite surprising to me, but lends a definite credibility to his work.

I guess I learned my something new for the day.

My favorite is "Creation" although it didn't even make the best sellers list.

he does mention at least one of his novels (in describing the period in which he was writing it) in "Dreaming War". This was something else that surprised me, and I thought I should check out some of his novels. I'm always astounded (and admittedly envious) of any writer who is talented enough to author novels, and knowledgeable enough to write pointed non-fiction.

A
Roberta Achtenberg, Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, former San Francisco city supervisor
Edward Albee, playwright (Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?)
Pedro Almodovar, director
Hans Christian Anderson, writer of children's fairy tales
Susan B. Anthony*, human rights activist


B
Sir Francis Bacon, writer
Joan Baez, musician
Josephine Baker, singer
James Baldwin, writer (Go Tell it on the Mountian, Giovanni's Room, Another Country)
Tammy Baldwin, state legislator (Wisconsin)
Sir James M. Barrie, playwirght/novelist (Peter Pan)
Deborah Batts, federal judge
Amanda Bearsey, actress
Andy Bell, musician
Sandra Bernhardt, comedian/actress
Leonard Berstein*, Composer (West Side Story, On the Waterfront)
Chastity Bono, daughter of Sonny & Cher
Boy George, musician (Culture Club)
John Boswell, historian/writer
Keith Boykin, presidential aide
Benjamin Britten, composer
Rita Mae Brown, novelist
Glenn Burke, Ex-Major League baseball player
William S. Burroughs, novelist, artist
Lord Byron, poet



C
Willa Cather*, writer (My Antonia, O' Pioneers)
Montgomery Clift, actor
Kate Clinton, comedian
Jean Cocteau
Aaron Copeland, composer
Julie Cypher, director (Teresa's Tattoo, music videos)


D
Leonardo da Vinci*
James Dean*, actor
Ellen DeGeneres, actress/comedian
Lea DeLaria, comedian
Emily Dickinson*, poet
Ani DiFranco, musician


E
Brian Epstein, First manager for the Beatles
Melissa Etheridge, musician


F
Barney Frank, U.S. Congressman
Will Fitzpatrick, state senator (Rhode Island)
Angie Fa, board of education (San Francisco)
Malcolm Forbes, publisher
E.M. Forster, writer (Howard's End, A Passage to India, Maurice)
Errol Flynn*, actor


G
David Geffen, film producer/music business
Candace Gingrich, Newt Gingrich's sister & GLBT Activist
Allen Ginsberg, poet
Steve Gunderson, U.S. Congressman (Wisconsin)


H
Radclyffe Hall, writer (The Well of Loneliness)
Sherry Harris, city council (Seattle)
Bruce Hayes, Olympic swimmer
Jon Hinson, former congressman (Mississippi)
Rock Hudson, actor
Tom Hulce, actor (Mozart in Amadeus)


I
Janis Ian, musician


J
Bob Jackson, professional bodybuilder
Henry James,writer
Elton John, musician
Holly Johnson, lead singer (Frankie goes to Hollywood)


K
Frida Kahlo, artist
Billie Jean King, professional tennis champion
David Kopay, retired NFL football player


L
k.d. lang, musician
Liberace, pianist/entertainer
Audre Lorde, African-American poet and activist
Greg Louganis, three-time Olympic gold medalist in diving
Amy Lowell, poet


M
Johnny Mathis, musician
Somerset Maugham, writer
Armistead Maupin, writer (Tales of the City)
Sir Ian McKellen, actor
Stewart McKinney, U.S. Congressman
Michelangelo*
Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet


N
Dave Navaro, musician (Red Hot Chilli Peppers)
Martina Navratilova, professional tennis champion


O
Georgia O'Keeffe, artist


P
Dave Pallone, Ex-Major League baseball umpire
Deb Price, Gannett newspapers columnist
Iggy Pop, musician
Cole Porter, song writer
Marcel Proust, writer (Remembrance of Things Past)


R
Amy Ray, musician (Indigo Girls)
Kenneth Reeves, mayor (Cambridge, Mass)
Eleanor Roosevelt, former first lady
RuPaul, entertainer
Paul Rutherford, singer (Frankie goes to Hollywood)


S
Emily Sailers, musician (Indigo Girls)
Sappho, Greek poet
Dick Sargent, actor (second Darrin on Bewitched)
Jose Sarria, first openly gay candidate for public office in U.S. history (San Francisco, 1961)
May Sarton, writer
Marie Schneider, actress (The Last Tango in Paris)
Franz Schubert, composer
Randy Shilts, journalist (The Mayor of Castro Street; And the Band Played On)
Siegfried and Roy, entertainers
Bessie Smith, singer
Jimmy Somerville, musician (Bronski Beat)
Allan Spear, Senator (Minnesota)
Gertrude Stein, writer
Michael Stipe, (lead singer of R.E.M.)
Gerry Studds, U.S. Congressman
Andrew Sullivan, editor of The New Republic magazine


T
Peter Tchaikovsky, composer
Alice B. Toklas, writer
Lily Tomlin, actress/comedian
Pete Townsend, musician (The Who)


V
Gus Van Sant, filmmaker (My Own Private Idaho)
Gore Vidal, novelist


W
Tom Waddell, Olympic decathelete
Andy Warhol
Walt Whitman, poet (Leaves of Grass)
Oscar Wilde, playwright/novelist (The Portrait of Dorian Gray)
Tennessee Williams, playwright (The Glass Menagerie; A Streetcar Named Desire)
Virginia Woolf*,writer


Z
Babe Didrikson Zaharias, professional golfer

I await your snide, insulting response. Have a great evening. :)

to your boundless talent for snide remarks.

Isn't this what you wanted to see? Isn't this how I get to be a member of the lockstep "Gay Our Way or the Highway" DU Gay Club?

I posted all these names, which is much more than you could be bothered to do when you started this particular thread. I did the research, I kissed your ass, and I want my positive reinforcement as a "Just Right" homosexual liberal progressive.

Surely you didn't start this thread just to be oh, I don't know...snide?

was a friend of Dorothy's. And Julius Caeser was known as" every man's wife and every womans husband" and archtype in Gavin Arthur's "Circle of Sex"

with your proficiency for cut 'n paste. You've really got a knack for it!

OK, you've got your pat on the back now. Time to move on.

:)

I'm not sure about that one.

a pedophile maybe?

Pete Townsend?

eleanor rooselvelt was gay? I never knew that

I think ER was very repressed sexually and one of the ways she compensated for this was to form passionate and effusive platonic attachments to other women. This was very common during that time (and not just for women, a lot of homoeroticism among straight men came from the same source). It's an interesting subject. The sexual revolution opened up society's ability to discuss such things. What it also did, though, was make it much harder for people to understand or connect with the mores of years past.

Take this bit from an ER letter as an example: "Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just north-east of the corner of your mouth against my lips...." One can certainly read this as code. But another way to read it which is legitimate is that ER was talking about a kiss on the cheek in effusive terms.

Post-sexual revolution people have a habit of reading eroticism into everything. You have to go back to these earlier years where sexual feelings were so buried that one could write a sentence like the above and not be aware of a sexual connotation. We know that a lot of people were like this (effusive and niave).

In my opinion it's a coin toss. It's worth considering both possibilities. Both are liberating in their own way (the argument that she wasn't bisexual, in its own way, shows just how much society changed during the last century).

One reason I lean against, btw, is because I lived for a few years in what people would call "the developing world" (where mores are closer to what life was like in the US 60 years ago, I think it's difficult for people who haven't lived in this kind of society to appreciate just how much repressed emotion can be the norm).

It's one that I often have to bring up for my students when we read 19th century lit. There was an ideal of "passionate friendship" at the time that lead to some remarkable letters. One must always be careful about viewing the past through modern eyes.

Still, though, this argument was used for nearly a century to deny what is perfectly clear about Whitman. While it is true that homosexuality did not exist as a concept during Whitman's day, and while it is true that friends were more physically affectionate in his time than in our own, it is still very hard to deny that Whitman's romantic interests were directed (apparently exclusively) to members of his own sex. Still, though, generations of critics have tried to "in" Whitman by arguing that everything was different back then so our man Walt was certainly no homo.

And some early letters don't seem to be just expressions of passionate friendship, like the exchange between James H. Hammond and Thomas Withers in which Withers asks Hammond whether he has “recently had ‘the extravagant delight of poking and punching a writhing Bedfellow with long fleshen pole--the exquisite touches of which I have often had the honor of feeling?’” Sounds like a bit more than "passionate friendship" to me.

The first big US city to have a gay mayor. And he is a Democrat, too.

He is one of my all time heroes.

I don't believe the Eleanor Roosevelt story. A lot of women in the suffrage movement were, though (including Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt).

I'd like to think she is, but something tells me she is not gay. The right wing likes to label any strong, independent woman as a lesbian, and we gays sometimes like to believe it ourselves, if the woman is someone we support. Agree/disagree?

One of the Greatest Actors of all time. I hear he was probably gay. Cool for him if he was.

Another brainy beautiful and talented actor.

We love them all:
http://www.northbound-train.com/whoswho/Alpha.html
http://www.northbound-train.com/whoislgb.html#Indexes

Second link is home page with background on the list.