Letting Go, Letting Love

After the Ecstasy

An excerpt from Jack Kornfield's forthcoming book

Ajahn Buddhadasa, whose monastery spread across a great forest of the Malay Peninsula, invited his students to sit with him in the coolness of the trees. Then he made a point of directing his students to look for Nirvana in the simplest ways, in everyday moments. “Nirvana,” he would say, “is the coolness of letting go, the inherent delight of experience when there is no grasping or resistance to life.”

Anyone can see that if grasping and aversion were with us all day and night without ceasing, who could ever stand them? Under that condition, living things would either die or become insane. Instead, we survive because there are natural periods of coolness, of wholeness, and ease. In fact, they last longer than the fires of our grasping and fear. It is this that sustains us. We have periods of rest making us refreshed, alive, well. Why don't we feel thankful for this everyday Nirvana?

We already know how to let go—we do it every night when we go to sleep, and that letting go, like a good night's sleep, is delicious. Opening in this way, we can live in the reality of our wholeness. A little letting go brings us a little peace, a greater letting go brings us a greater peace. Entering the gateless gate, we begin to treasure the moments of wholeness. We begin to trust the natural rhythm of the world, just as we trust our own sleep and how our own breath breathes itself.

On a retreat, a healer and psychologist who had devoted fifteen years to spiritual practice was struggling yet again with the question of relationships. Feelings of longing and craving and blame kept coming up again and again. We talked and I suggested he spend some days directing a lovingkindness meditation toward himself. At first he resisted; like so many of us, he felt uncomfortable focusing on himself. It was awkward to offer the intention of love and kindness to himself over and over for days. But as the retreat went on, his heart softened. Forgiveness for himself and others arose. The world began to look more beautiful. And then came a realization:

It is I who must love myself. No one else can make me feel whole. Only I can provide that love. Now I know that wholeness is always accessible to me and all beings everywhere. This knowing allows me to live with a new peacefulness and kindness to myself and others. In the simplest way, it has changed my whole life.

Again, the lesson of spiritual practice is not about gaining knowledge, but about how we love. Are we able to love what is given to us, to love in the midst of all things, to love ourselves and others? Are we able to see the illumination offered by the sun every morning? If we cannot, what must we do in the body, heart, and mind to allow us to open ourselves, to let go, to rest in our natural perfection? The gate is open, what we seek is just in front of us. It is so today and every day.

Meditation teacher Larry Rosenberg went to practice with Zen Master Seung Sahn in Korea. During the journey he undertook a pilgrimage to other masters and temples, and while traveling on a remote road he came across a particularly elegant Buddhist shrine, or stupa, at the base of a mountain. Next to it was a sign, “Way to the Most Beautiful Buddha in All of Korea,” and an arrow pointing to the thousand-step path up the mountain. Larry decided to climb, hiking up the steps until he reached the top. The view was breathtaking in every direction. The simple Zen stone pagoda matched the elegance of the one below. But in place of the Buddha on the altar there was nothing, only empty space and the gorgeous green-hilled vista below. When he went closer, at the empty altar was a plaque that read, “If you can't see the Buddha here, you had better go down and practice some more.”

From After the Ecstasy, The Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path by Jack Kornfield Copyright (c) Jack Kornfield. To be published in June 2000 by Bantam Books, an imprint of the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.

Our True Nature

Whatever our lives are like, our buddha nature is always there. And it is always perfect. We say that not even the buddhas can improve it in their infinite wisdom, nor can sentient beings spoil it in their seemingly infinite confusion.

Our true nature could be compared to the sky, and the confusion of the ordinary mind to clouds. Some days the sky is completely obscured by clouds. When we are down on the ground, looking up, it is very difficult to believe that there is anything else there but clouds. Yet we have only to fly in a plane to discover above the clouds a limitless expanse of clear blue sky. From up there, the clouds we assumed were everything seem so small and so far away down below.

We should always try to remember: The clouds are not the sky and do not “belong” to it. They only hang there and pass by in their slightly ridiculous and nondependent fashion. And they can never stain or mark the sky in any way.

(From the blog The Masculine Heart.)

~ Sogyal Rinpoche

Historical Gay Figures

I found this little list of historical figures whose history needs to be updated in the school books. This list provided by a member of Yahoo Answers. And even Abe couldn't get on this list! Let the healing begin!! Gay people are everywhere and they make real and positive contributions to the advancement of society.

Abd Al-Rahman [m] (r: 1880-1901) Afghani king (NF)
Abu Nuwas [m] (AD 756?-810) Arabian poet (AA)
Achilles [m] Greek mythological hero (GGG May 91)
Achtenberg, Roberta [f] San Francisco city supervisor (MH)
"Adult Children of Heterosexuals" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Agathon [m] (450?-400? BC) Athenian dramatist (AA)
Ai [m] (r: 6 BC-AD 1) Chinese emperor (NF)
Akhenaten [m] (1364-1334 BC) Egyptian pharoah (OOAT, AA, GGG Jun 90)
Albee, Edward [m] (1928- ) U.S. playwright "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (AA, GGG Jan 92, TM, MH)
Alcibiades [m] (450-404 BC) Athenian general-statesman (GGG Jun 91, AA, OOAT)
Alexander I [m] (1777-1825) Russian czar (AA)
Alexander the Great [m] (356-323 BC) Macedonian king (AA, OOAT, BOL, NF, TM)
Alexander VI [m] (1431-1503) Pope (GGG Aug 92)
Alger, Horatio [m] (1832-1899) U.S. author (BOL, AA, GGG Jan 90, TM)
Al-Hakem II [m] (r: AD 961-976) Cordoban ruler (NF)
"Alive!" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Allen, Peter [m] (1944-1992) Australian entertainer (TM)
Almodovar, Pedro [m] (____- ) Spanish film-maker "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down" (TM, MH)
Almond, Mark [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Al-Mutamid [m] (r: 1069-1090) Ruler of Seville (Spain) (NF)
Ammiano, Tom [m] schoolteacher, comedian, San Francisco School Board member (and first-place vote-getter) (MH)
Amos, Tori [ ] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Amunullah Kahn [m] (r: 1919-1929) Afghani king (NF)
Anacreon [m] (572?-488? BC) Greek poet (AA)
Andersen, Hans Christian [m] (1805-1875) Danish author (BOL, AA, GGG Jul 92, TM)
Anderson, Emily [f] photographer (MH)
Anderson, Laurie [f] performance artist (MH-not)
Anne [f] (1665-1714) British queen (OOAT, AA, NF)
Anne Ioannovna [f] (r: 1730-1740) Russian empress (NF)
Anthony, Susan B. [f] (1820-1906) U.S. activist (OOAT, AA, TM)
Antigonus II Gonatas [m] (r: 276-239 BC) Greek king (NF)
Antiochus I [m] (r: 280-261 BC) Greek king (NF)
Antoinette, Marie [f] (1755-1793) French queen (OOAT)
Apuzzo, Virginia [f] adviser to Governor Mario Cuomo; former head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (MH)
Araki, Greg [m] filmmaker "The Living End" (MH)
Aristotle [m] (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher (BOL, TM)
Armatrading, Joan [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
"Army of Lovers" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Ash, Daniel [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Ash, John [m] poet and literary critic (MH)
Ashbery, John [m] Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (MH)
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu [m] (r: 1368-1394) Japanese shogun (NF)
Ashman, Howard [m] (1951-1991) U.S. playwright-lyricist (GGG Sep 91)
Auden, W.H. [m] (1907-1973) British poet (AA, GGG Dec 89, BOL, TM)
Augustine, Saint [m] (AD 354-430) Roman theologian (AA)
Augustus [m] (r: 31 BC-AD 14) Roman emperor (NF)
Azaa, Manuel [m] (r: 1931-1933, 1936-1939) Spanish president (NF)
Aznavour, Charles [m] (1924- ) French, more singer than actor (TM)
"B-52's" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Bachardy, Don [m] artist; life partner of the late novelist Christopher Isherwood (MH)
Bachmann, Guido [m] writer (MH)
Bacon, Sir Francis [m] (1561-1626) Br philosopher-statesman (BOL, GGG Jul 90, AA, GBOL-bro, TM)
Baez, Joan [f] (1941- ) U.S. folk singer-political activist (GBOL-once, MH "onetime")
Bagoas [m] (345?-after 323 BC) Persian slave (to Alex. Great) (GGG Oct 92)
"Bahaus" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Bakker, James [m] (1940- ) U.S. evangelist (AA)
Baldwin, James [m] (1924-1987) U.S. writer (AA, GGG Aug 88)
Bancroft, Ann [f] explorer and teacher (*not* the actress Anne) (MH)
Bankhead, Tallulah [f] (1903-1968) U.S. actress (GBOL-once)
Barber, Samuel [m] (1910-1981) U.S. composer (AA, GBOL-forces, LS)
Barnes, Djuna [f] (1892-1982) U.S. novelist (AA)
Barney, Natalie [f] (1876-1972) Parisian writer & salon hostess (AA)
Barnfield, Richard [m] (1574-1627) British poet (AA)
Barrie, James M. [m] (1860-1937) British author (GGG Sep 92)
Bartel, Paul [m] filmmaker (MH)
Bartlett, John [m] fashion designer (MH)
Basil II [m] (r: 976-1025) Byzantine emperor (NF)
Bates, Alan [m] (1934-1992) British-born U.S. actor (TM)
Bauman, Robert [m] (1937- ) U.S. politician (AA, MH)
Beach, Sylvia [f] (1887-1962) U.S. expatriate literary figure (AA)
Beard, James [m] (1903-1985) U.S. chef and author (TM)
Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent [m] (1872-1898) British artist (GGG May 90)
Beaton, Sir Cecil [m] (1904-1980) British photographer (GGG Sep 90)
"Beautiful South, The" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Beck, Pia [f] singer and pianist (MH)
Beckford, William [m] (1760-1844) British writer and politician (AA)
Beecher, Henry Ward [m] (1813-1887) U.S. lecturer and pastor (AA)
Beethoven, Ludwig von [m] (1770-1827) German composer (AA)
Behan, Brendan [m] (1923-1964) Irish author (BOL, TM)
Bell, Andy [m] (____- ) Musician of the group "Erasure" (various, LS, MH)
Benedict IX [m] (1020-1055?) Pope (AA, GBOL-popes, OOAT)
Bennett, Michael [m] (1943-1987) U.S. choreographer (GGG Aug 89)
Ben-Shalom, Miriam [f] sued military for reinstatement after expulsion for being lesbian (MH)
Bentley, Eric [m] critic, theatre director and translator (MH)
"Berlin" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Bernhard, Sandra [f] (1955- ) U.S. comedian-actress (TM, MH)
Bernstein, Leonard [m] (1918-1990) U.S. composer (GGG Nov 90, TM, LS)
Beyazid I [m] (r: 1389-1402) Ottoman sultan (NF)
Beza, Theodore [m] (1519-1605) French theologian (AA)
Birisima, George [f] actor and playwright (MH)
Blackwell, Mr. [m] fashion designer; creator of annual "Ten Worst Dressed" list (MH)
Blais, Marie-Claire [f] French-language novelist (MH)
Blake, Nayland [ ] artist (MH)
Blaser, Robin [ ] writer (MH)
Blitzstein, Marc [m] (1905-1964) U.S. composer (GGG Mar 91)
Bogarde, Dirk [m] (1920- ) British actor (GBOL-once, MH)
Bonheur, Rosa [f] (1822-1899) French artist (AA)
Bono, Chastity [f] daughter of Sonny Bono and Cher (MH)
Boswell, John [m] historian (MH)
Botticelli, Sandro [m] (1444?-1510) Italian painter (BOL, TM)
Bowie, Angela [f] poet and performance artist; ex-wife of David Bowie (MH)
Bowie, David [m] (1947- ) British rock singer (GBOL-once, BOL, TM, LS, MH "experimenting")
Bowles, Jane [f] (1917-1973) U.S. writer (AA)
Bowles, Paul [m] writer (MH)
Boy George (George O'Dowd) [m] (1961- ) British pop singer (LS, MH)
Boyd, Malcolm [m] (1923- ) U.S. Episc. priest & gay activist (AA, BOL, TM, MH)
Bradley, Dan [m] (1940-1988) U.S. political activist (AA)
Bradshaw, Terry [m] (____- ) U.S. football player (TM "wrestler")
Brainard, Joe [m] poet and artist (MH)
Brando, Marlon [m] (1924- ) U.S. actor (GBOL-once, MH)
Bray, Robert [m] spokesman for National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (MH)
Britt, Harry [m] former President of the San Francisco City Board of Supervisors (MH)
Britten, Benjamin [m] (1913-1976) British composer (AA, GGG Jul 90, TM, LS)
Broderick, Matthew [m] actor (MH-not)
"Bronski Beat" British gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Brooks, Romaine [f] (1874-1970) U.S. painter (AA)
Brossard, Nicole [f] novelist (MH)
Broughton, James [m] poet, filkmaker and playwright (MH)
Broumas, Olga [f] poet (MH)
Brown, Rita Mae [f] (____-____) U.S. novelist, author of "Rubyfruit Jungle" (TM, MH)
Brunner, John [m] writer (MH)
Buchanan, James [m] (1791-1868) U.S. president (AA "speculation")
Burke, Glenn [m] ex-Major League baseball player (MH)
Burns, John Horne [m] (1916-1953) U.S. novelist (GBOL-forces)
Burroughs, William S. [m] (1913- ) U.S. writer (GBOL-forces, GGG Jan 91, AA, TM, MH)
Burson, Scott [m] artist (MH)
Burton, Richard [m] (1925-1984) British actor (GBOL-once)
Burton, Sir Richard [m] (1821-1890) British explorer & scholar (AA, GGG Jan 91)
Busch, Charles [m] writer, director and actor (MH)
Bush, Kate [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Busi, Aldo [m] Italian novelist (MH)
Bussotti, Sylvano [m] (1931- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Butler, Samuel [m] (1835-1902) British author (BOL, TM)
Button, Dick [m] Olympic athlete (MH)
"Buzzcocks, The" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Cadmus, Paul [m] (____-____) painter (TM, MH)
Cage, John [m] (1912-1992) U.S. composer (TM, LS, MH)
Caja, Jerome [m] artist (MH)
Califia, Pat [ ] advice columnist (MH)
Caligula [m] (r: AD 37-41) Roman emperor (NF)
Callen, Michael [m] (1955-1993) singer, member of musical group "The Flirtations" (MH, LS)
Callow, Simon [m] (1949- ) British actor (GGG Apr 92, TM, MH)
Cambaceres, Jean Jaques Regis de [m] (1753-1824) Fr lawmaker (AA)
Campbell, Jack [m] millionaire Florida businessman and activist (MH)
Camus, Renaud [m] French novelist (MH)
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Amerighi) [m] (1571-1610) Ital painter (GGG Apr 92)
Carpenter, Edward [m] (1844-1929) English reformer (AA, GGG Nov 91, TM)
Carswell, G. Harold [m] (1920- ) U.S. jurist (AA)
Carver, Craig [m] artist (MH)
Casanova, Giovanni Giacomo [m] (1725-1798) Italian adventurer (GBOL-once)
Casement, Sir Roger [m] (1864-1916) Irish patriot (AA, OOAT, GGG Oct 91)
"Casselberry and Dupree" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Cather, Willa [f] (1873-1947) U.S. writer (OOAT, AA)
Catherine II (The Great) [f] (r: 1762-1796) Russian empress (NF)
Catullus Gaius Valerius [m] (c 84-45 BC) Roman poet (GGG Nov 91)
Cavafy, Constantine [m] (1863-1933) Greek poet (AA, GBOL-bro, GGG Jun 91)
Cellini, Benvenuto [m] (1500-1571) Italian goldsmith (BOL, TM)
Chamberlain, Richard [m] (1945- ) U.S. actor (GGG Oct 90, TM, MH)
Chambers, Jane [m] (1937-1983) U.S. writer (AA)
Chambers, Whittaker [m] (1901-1961) U.S. journalist (GBOL-once)
Channell, Carl "Spitz" [m] fundraiser for the Nicaraguan contras (MH)
Chapman, Graham [m] (1941-1989) British actor (GGG May 90)
Chapman, Tracey [f] African-American folksinger (TM, LS, MH-not)
Charles IX [m] (r: 1560-1574) French king (NF)
Charles XII [m] (r: 1697-1718) Swedish king (NF)
Charles XV [m] (r: 1859-1872) Swedish king (NF)
Cheever, John [m] (1912-1982) U.S. writer (AA, GGG May 91, GBOL-forces)
Cho, Margaret [f] comedian (MH)
Christian, Meg [f] (1946- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS, MH)
Christian VII [m] (r: 1766-1808) Danish king (NF)
Christina [f] (1626-1689) Swedish queen (AA, BOL, OOAT, NF, TM)
Churchill, Sir Winston (1874-1965) British statesman & author (AA "once", GBOL-once)
Ciccone, Christopher [m] artist and set designer; brother of Madonna (MH)
Claiborne, Craig [m] (1920- ) U.S. author and gourmet (GBOL-forces, MH, TM)
Clarke, Arthur C. [m] (1917- ) British writer (GBOL-once)
Claudius I [m] (r: AD 41-54) Roman emperor (NF)
Clift, Montgomery [m] (1920-1966) U.S. actor (AA, TM)
Clinton, Kate [f] comedian (MH)
Cocteau, Jean [m] (1889-1963) french author (BOL, AA, GGG Aug 89, TM)
Cohn, Roy [m] (1927-1986) U.S. attorney (AA, NSGGG Oct 89, TM)
"Coil" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Colette (Sidonie Colette Goudeket) [f] (1873-1954) Fr novelist (AA)
Commodus [m] (r: AD 180-192) Roman emperor (NF)
Connelly, Arch [m] artist (MH)
Conner, Bart [m] (1958- ) U.S. Olympic gymnast (TM)
Conners, Dave [m] (1945-1985) U.S. gay-porn star (GBOL-forces)
Conradin [m] (1252-1268) Titular king of Jerusalem and Sicily (AA)
"Consolidated" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Constantine IX [m] (r: 1042-1055) Byzantine emperor (NF)
Constantine VIII [m] (r: 1025-1028) Byzantine emperor (NF)
Cooling, Janet [f] artist (MH)
Copland, Aaron [m] (1900-1990) U.S. composer (GGG Aug 91, LS)
Corigliano, John [m] classical composer (MH)
Corll, Dean [m] (1939-1973) U.S. serial murderer (NSGGG Apr 91)
Corn, Alfred [m] poet (MH)
Corrine, Tee A. [ ] artist (MH)
Costanza, Midge [f] White House aide to President Carter (MH)
Coward, Sir Noel [m] (1899-1973) Br playwright, composer & actor (AA, GGG Oct 88)
Crane, Hart [m] (1899-1932) U.S. poet (AA)
Crew, Louie [m] professor, founder of Integrity (lesbigay Episcopal group) (MH)
Crisp, Quentin [m] (1908- ) British naked civil servant (GGG Jan 91, TM, MH)
Crowley, Mort [m] playwright "The Boys In The Band" (MH)
Cukor, George [m] (1899-1983) U.S. film director (AA, GGG Dec 88)
Curtis, Jamie Lee [f] (1958- ) U.S. actress (TM)
Curtis, Tony [m] (1925- ) U.S. actor (TM)
Cushman, Charlotte [f] (1816-1876) U.S. actress (BOL, GGG Jun 92, TM)
da Vinci, Leonardo [m] (1452-1519) Ital artist, scientist & painter (AA, GGG Oct 88, BOL, TM)
Dallesandro, Joe [m] actor in Andy Warhol films (MH)
Daly, Mary [f] feminist writer (MH)
Damata, Gasparino [m] Brazilian writer (MH)
Damon, Betsy [f] artist (MH)
Damron, Bob [m] (1928-1989) U.S. travel-book publisher (GGG Nov 90)
David [m] (1035?-960? BC) Israeli king (AA, OOAT)
Davila, Juan [m] writer (MH)
Dean, Craig (and Patrick Gill) [m] male couple suing D.C. government for a marriage license (MH)
Dean, James [m] (1931-1955) U.S. actor (AA, GBOL-once, OOAT, TM)
Deee-lite [ ] Musician (LS)
Deitch, Donna [f] filmmaker (Desert Hearts) (MH)
Delany, Samuel [m] (1942- ) U.S. writer (AA, TM, MH)
Demetrius Poliorcetes [m] (336-288 BC) Macedonian king (NF, GGG Dec 91)
D'Emilio, John [m] historian (MH)
Demosthenes [m] (384-322 BC) Athenian orator (AA)
Demuth, Charles [m] (1883-1935) U.S. painter (AA, GGG Aug 91)
Dennis, Patrick [m] novelist (MH)
"Depeche Mode" Musical group (LS, MH)
Diaghilev, Sergei [m] (1872-1929) Russian impresario (AA, GGG Dec 89)
Diamond, David [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS, MH)
Dickinson, Emily [f] (1830-1886) U.S. poet (OOAT, TM)
Diller, Barry [m] entertainment executive (MH-not)
DiMaria-Kuiper, Rev. Johannes Willem [m] minister (MH)
Disch, Thomas M. [m] poet and science-fiction writer (MH)
Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead) [m] (1945-1988) U.S. actor (GGG Feb 90)
Dobkin, Alix [ ] folksinger (MH)
Dolan, Terry [m] (1950-1986) U.S. conservative activist (AA, NSGGG Apr 91)
Domitian [m] (r: AD 81-96) Roman emperor (NF)
Donovan, Rick [m] (1963- ) U.S. gay-porn star (GBOL-forces)
Douglas, Alfred Lord [m] (1870-1945) British socialite(?) (OOAT, GGG Oct 92)
Dressler, Marie [f] (1869-1934) U.S. actress (TM)
Dreva, Jerry "Jerri Bonbon" [m] writer (MH)
Duane, Tom [m] New York City Council member (MH)
Duberman, Martin [m] historian and writer (Cures) (MH)
Duggan, Hacksaw Jim [m] (____- ) U.S. wrestler (TM)
Duncan, Robert Edward [m] poet (MH)
Duquesnoy, Francois [m] (1597-1643) Flemish sculptor (GBOL-bro)
Duquesnoy, Jerome [m] (1602-1654) Flemish sculptor (AA)
Dureau, George [m] (____- ) U.S? photographer (TM)
Dworkin, Andrea [f] feminist writer and anti-pornography activist (MH)
Earhart, Amelia [f] (1898-1937?) U.S. aviator (AA "speculation")
Edward II [m] (1284-1327) English king (AA, GGG Jun 89, OOAT, NF)
Edwards, Sally [f] athlete and businesswoman (MH)
Eisenstein, Sergei [m] (1898-1948) Russian film pioneer (TM)
Elagabalus (aka Heliogabalus) [m] (AD 204-222) Roman emperor (OOAT, NF)
"Electronic" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Ellis, Havelock [m] (1859-1939) Br essayist & physician (AA)
Ellis, Perry [m] (1940-1986) U.S. fashion designer (GGG Jan 91, TM)
Elmslie, Kenward [m] writer and librettist (MH)
Enrique IV [m] (r: 1454-1474) Castilian (Spanish) king (NF)
Epstein, Brian [m] (1934-1967) British businessman, "Beatles" promoter (AA)
Erasmus, Desiderius [m] (1466?-1536) Dutch theologian & scholar (AA, GGG Aug 88)
Eshius, Evelien [ ] member of Dutch parliament (MH)
Estrada, Erik [m] (1949- ) U.S. actor (TM)
Etheridge, Melissa [f] (____- ) musician (LS)
Euripides [m] (480?-406? BC) Greek dramatist (BOL, TM)
Everett, Rupert [m] British actor (Another Country) (MH)
Farrell, Perry [m] lead singer of Jane's Addiction (MH)
Fashanu, Justin [m] (____- ) English footballer (TM, MH)
Fassbinder, Rainer Werner [m] (1946-1982) German film maker (GGG Jun 89)
Feinberg, David F. [m] novelist (Eighty-Sixed; Spontaneous Combustion) (MH)
Ferdinand I [m] (r: 1908-1918) Bulgarian king (NF)
Fernandez, Dominique [f] French novelist (MH)
Ferron, [ ] folksinger (MH, LS)
Field, Edward [m] poet (MH)
Fierstein, Harvey [m] (1954- ) U.S. playwright-actor (GGG Aug 91, TM, MH)
Finley, Karen [f] One of the "NEA Four", performance artists whose federal grants were cut off because of "homoerotic" content in their work (MH)
Finn, William [m] Tony-winning Broadway actor (Falsettos) (MH)
Fleck, John [m] One of the "NEA Four", performance artists whose federal grants were cut off because of "homoerotic" content in their work (MH)
Flipper [dolphin] (____-____) dolphins are polymorphously perverse (TM)
Flowers, Wayland [m] (1939-1988) U.S. entertainer (GGG Jun 90)
Floyd, Gary [m] leader of Sister Double Happiness (MH)
Flynn, Errol [m] (1909-1959) U.S. actor (AA)
Forbes, Malcolm [m] (1919-1990) U.S. publisher (GGG Oct 91)
Forster, E.M. [m] (1879-1970) British author (BOL, AA, GGG Dec 88, TM)
Foster, Jodie [f] (1962- ) U.S. actress (TM, MH-not)
Foster, Stephen [m] (1826-1864) U.S. composer (AA)
Foucault, Michel [m] (1926-1984) French philosopher (AA)
Frank, Anne [f] (1929-1945) German diarist (AA)
Frank, Barney [m] (1940- ) U.S. congressman (GGG Jun 90, AA, TM, MH)
Frederick II (The Great) [m] (1712-1786) Prussian king (AA, BOL, GBOL-bro, GGG Dec 89, OOAT, NF, TM)
Fredrick II [m] (r: 1212-1250) Holy Roman Emperor (NF)
Freelove, Laurie of "Two Nice Girls" [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Fricke, Aaron [m] (1962- ) U.S. author (GGG Dec 92)
"Frogs, The" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Fry, Stephen [m] (____- ) British actor (Melchett in "Blackadder") (TM)
Gacy, John [m] (1942-1994) U.S. serial killer (NSGGG Oct 89)
Gaozu [m] (r: 206-194 BC) Chinese emperor (NF)
Garbo, Greta [f] (1905-____) U.S. actress (TM)
Garet, Jedd [m] artist (MH)
Gearhart, Sally [f] professor, writer and activist (MH)
Geffen, David [m] (____- ) U.S. head of the Geffen Corporation (TM, MH)
Genet, Jean [m] (1910-1986) French author (GGG Jul 90, BOL, AA, TM)
Germino, Dante [m] professor and political theorist (MH)
Getty, Gordon [m] classical composer (MH)
Gide, Andre [m] (1869-1951) French author (BOL, AA, OOAT, TM)
Gielgud, John [m] (1904- ) British actor (GGG Feb 89, TM, MH)
Gilbert and George, visual artists (MH)
Gilbert, Ronnie [ ] folksinger, member of The Weavers (MH)
Gill, Patrick (and Craig Dean) [m] male couple suing D.C. government for a marriage license (MH)
Gilles de Rais [m] (1404-1440) French general (AA)
Gilmore, Gary [m] (1941-1977) U.S. murderer (GBOL-once)
Ginsberg, Allan [m] (1926- ) U.S. poet (BOL, GGG Sep 90, TM, MH)
Glanville-Hicks, Peggy [f] classical composer (MH)
Gless, Sharon [f] (1943- ) U.S. actress (TM)
Glick, Deborah [f] New York state legislator (MH)
Glines, John [m] Broadway producer (MH)
Gomes, Rev. John [m] chaplain of Harvard University (MH)
Gomez, Jewelle [f] writer (MH)
Goodman, Paul [m] (1911-1972) U.S. writer (AA)
Gordon, George, Lord Byron [m] (1788-1824) British poet (AA, BOL, GGG Feb 89, TM)
Goytisolo, Juan [m] Spanish novelist (MH)
Grace, Nicholas [m] (____- ) U.S? actor (TM)
Grainger, Percy [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Grant, Cary [m] (1904-1986) U.S. actor (GGG Dec 89, TM)
Graves, Michael [m] (1934- ) U.S. architect and interior designer (TM)
Grewel, Annemarie [f] Dutch politician and scholar (MH)
Grieg, Edvard [m] (1843-1907) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Grier, Barbara [f] writer and publisher (MH)
Griffin, Merv [m] singer, talk-show host and entertainment executive (MH-not)
Grimke, Angelina Weld [f] (1880-1958) U.S. writer (AA)
Grumbach, Doris [f] writer and critic (MH)
Guerin, Daniel [m] French journalist (MH)
Gunn, Thom [m] poet (MH)
Gurganus, Allan [m] novelist (Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All) (MH)
Gustavus III [m] (1746-1792) Swedish king (BOL, TM)
Gustavus V [m] (r: 1907-1950) Swedish king (NF)
Hacker, Marilyn [f] poet (MH)
Hadrian [m] (AD 76-138) Roman emperor (AA, BOL, OOAT, NF, TM)
Hafiz (Shams-ud-din Mohammed) [m] (1320-1388) Persian poet (GGG Aug 91)
Halford, Rob, of "Judas Priest" [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Hall, Daryl [m] (1948- ) U.S. pop singer (GBOL-once)
Halloran, Andrew [m] novelist (MH)
Halsted, Fred [m] (1941-1989) U.S. erotic-film maker (GGG May 90)
Hammarskjold, Dag [m] (1905-1961) Swedish UN secretary general (BOL, AA, TM)
Hampton, Christopher [m] playwright (MH)
Hansberry, Lorraine [f] (1930-1965) U.S. playwright (AA)
Hardwicke, Michael [m] challenged Georgia's sodomy law; the U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, upheld the law in 1986 (MH)
Haring, Keith [m] (1958-1990) U.S. artist (TM)
Harjo, Joy [f] Native American poet (recently visited U.Va.) (MH)
Harmodius [m] (532?-514 BC) Athenian patriot (AA)
Harris, Sherry [f] Seattle City Council member; first African-American lesbian elected official in U.S. (MH)
Harrison, Lou [m] classical composer (MH)
Hattoy, Bob [m] adviser to Bill Clinton; spoke at Democratic convention (MH)
Hawkins, Sophie B. [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Hay, Harry [m] founder of the modern gay-rights movement (MH)
Hayes, Bruce [m] Olympic gold medallist in swimming (MH)
Hemphill, Essex [m] (____-____) U.S. writer (TM, MH)
Henri III [m] (1554-1589) French king (OOAT, NF, GGG Dec 92)
Henry, Prince of Prussia [m] (1726-1802) Prussian general (AA)
Henze, Hans Werner [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Herzenberg, Joseph [m] mayor pro-tem of Chapel Hill, N.C. (MH)
Higgins, Colin [m] (1941-1988) U.S. film writer, producer & director (AA)
Hinson, Jon [m] (1942- ) U.S. congressman (AA, MH)
Hirschfeld, Magnus [m] (1868-1935) German sexologist (AA, GGG May 91)
Hisham II [m] (r: 965-1013) Cordoban ruler (NF)
Hockney, David [m] (1937- ) British/U.S. artist (TM, MH)
Hoffman, William S. [m] (____- ) U.S? writer "As Is" (TM, MH)
Holleran, Andrew [m] (1946- ) U.S. writer (GBOL-forces)
Hoover, J. Edgar [m] (1895-1972) U.S. criminologist (AA, NSGGG Apr 91)
Hopkins, Gerard Manley [m] (1844-1889) British poet (GGG Aug 92)
Horton, Jeff [m] member of Los Angeles School Board (MH)
Housman, A.E. [m] (1859-1936) British poet & educator (AA, GBOL-bro)
Houston, Whitney [f] (____- ) U.S. gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Howard, Richard [m] poet, translator and editor (MH)
Hudson, Rock (ne Roy Scherer) [m] (1925-1985) U.S. actor (AA, GBOL-forces, TM)
Hughes, Langston [m] (1902-1967) U.S. poet & writer (AA)
Hulce, Tom [m] (1953- ) U.S. actor (TM, MH)
"Human League" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Hunter, Alberta [f] (1895-1984) U.S. vocalist (AA)
Hunter, Holly [f] One of the "NEA Four", performance artists whose federal grants were cut off because of "homoerotic" content in their work (MH)
Hunter, Tab [m] (1931- ) U.S. actor (TM)
Hutter, David [m] painter (MH)
Hutton, Kate [m] seismologist (MH)
Hyde, Edward (Lord Cornbury) [m] (1661-1724) Br colonial governor (AA)
Hyde, Sue [f] (____- ) U.S. activist (TM)
Ian, Janis [f] singer (MH)
Indiana, Robert [m] artist (MH)
"Indigo Girls" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Inge, William [m] (1913-1973) U.S. playwright (GGG Nov 91)
Ireland, Patricia [f] president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) (MH)
Isherwood, Christopher [m] (1904-1986) U.S. writer (b. England) (AA, BOL, OOAT, TM)
Ivory, James [m] British film producer (MH)
Jackson, Joe [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Jackson-Paris, Rod [m] pro model/bodybuilder (MH)
Jacobs, Marc [m] fashion designer (MH)
Jahangir [m] (r: 1605-1627) Indian emperor (NF)
James IV/I [m] (1566-1625) Scottish/English king (NF, BOL, GGG Feb 90. OOAT, AA, TM)
James, Sheila [f] (____- ) U.S. actress (Zelda on "Dobie Gillis") (TM)
Jarman, Derek [m] (1942-1994) British filmmaker "Edward II" (TM, MH)
Jenkins, Walter [m] (1918-1985) U.S. political aide (AA)
Jesus of Nazareth [m] (4 BC-AD 28) Jewish rabbi (OOAT)
Jewett, Sarah Orne [f] (1849-1909) U.S. writer (OOAT)
Jin Diyi [m] (r: AD 336-371) Chinese emperor (NF)
John, Elton [m] (1947- ) British singer (BOL, TM, LS, MH)
John XII [m] (AD 937-964) Catholic pope (GBOL-popes, OOAT)
Johns, Jasper [m] artist (MH)
Johnson, Holly [f] lead singer of "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" (MH, LS)
Johnson, Philip [m] (____-____) U.S? architect (TM, MH)
Johnson, Sonia [f] feminist, minor-party presidential candidate (MH)
Jonathan [m] (1045?-1013 BC) Israeli crown prince (AA, GGG Apr 92, OOAT)
Jones, Bill T. [m] African-American dancer (MH)
Jones, Cleve [m] initiator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, now running for San Francisco city supervisor (MH)
Jones, Grace [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Jones, Howard [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Joplin, Janis [f] (1943-1970) U.S. rock singer (GBOL-once, BOL, TM)
Juan II [m] (r: 1406-1454) King of Castile & Leon (Spain) (NF)
Julius Caesar [m] (100?-44 BC) Roman statesman (AA, GGG Apr 92, NF, BOL, TM)
Julius II [m] (1443-1513) Pope (GGG May 92)
Julius III [m] (1487-1555) Pope (AA, BOL, OOAT, GBOL-popes, TM)
Jung, Carl [m] (1875-1961) Swiss founder analytical psychology (GBOL-once)
Kameny, Frank [m] longtime activist; first openly gay person to run for Congress (1971) (MH)
Kamran [m] (r: early 19th C) Afghani emir (NF)
Kantrowitz, Arnie [m] writer, teacher and activist (MH)
Katz, Jonathan Ned [m] historian (MH)
Kaye, Danny (ne David Daniel Kaminsky) [m] (1913-1987) U.S. actor (GGG Oct 92, Spoto)
Kelly, Dennis [m] poet (MH)
Kemp, Jack [m] (1935- ) U.S. politician (AA "rumors")
Kenny, Maurice [m] poet (MH)
Kert, Larry [m] (1930-1991) U.S. stage actor (GGG Apr 92)
Keynes, John Maynard [m] (1883-1946) British economist (AA, BOL, TM)
King, Billie Jean [f] (1943- ) U.S. tennis pro (GBOL-once, AA, TM, MH)
"King Missile" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
King, William Rufus de Vane [m] (1786-1853) U.S. politician (AA)
Kitchener, Horatio Herbert [m] (1850-1916) English general (AA, GGG Dec 92)
"Kitchens of Distinction" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Klein, Calvin [m] (1942- ) U.S. fashion designer (TM)
Kopay, David [m] (1942- ) U.S. athlete (NFL football) (AA, TM, MH)
Kramer, Larry [m] (____- ) U.S. writer-activist (TM, MH)
Kray, Ronald [m] (1933- ) English gangster (TM)
Krohnke, Friedrich [m] German writer (MH)
Krupp, Friederich [m] (1854-1902) German industrialist (AA)
Kureishi, Hanif [m] novelist and screenwriter (My Beautiful Laundrette; Sammy and Rosie Get Laid) (MH)
Kuzmin, Mikhail [m] (1875-1936) Russian poet (AA)
La Fosse, Robert [m] (1959- ) U.S. ballet dancer (GGG Sep 92)
Laaksonen, Touko "Tom of Finland" [m] (1920-1991) Finnish artist (GGG May 92)
Laettner, Christian [m] Duke U basketball star (MH-not)
Lakich, Lili [f] artist (MH)
lang, k.d. [f] (1961- ) Canadian singer (Advocate 1992, TM, LS, MH)
Laughton, Charles [m] (1899-1962) British actor (AA, TM)
Lavner, Lynn [f] comedian (MH)
Lawrence, Thomas Edward "of Arabia" [m] (1888-1935) Br adventurer (OOAT, AA, BOL, TM)
Leavitt, David [m] (1961- ) U.S. author "The Lost Language of Cranes" (TM, MH)
Lebowitz, Fran [f] writer and satirist (MH)
LeGuin, Ursula [f] novelist (MH)
Lekakis, Paul [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Lennox, Annie [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Leo X [m] (1475-1521) Catholic pope (GBOL-popes, OOAT)
Leopold, Nathan [m] (1906-1971) U.S. murder (with Loeb, Ric.) (NSGGG Oct 89)
Leppard, Raymond [m] classical composer (MH)
LeVay, Simon [m] medical researcher; found physiological differences between brains of gay and straight men (MH)
Levertov, Denise [f] poet (MH)
Levi, Jeffrey [m] (____- ) U.S. activist NGLTF (TM, MH)
Lian Jianwen [m] (r: AD 550-551) Chinese emperor (NF)
Liberace, Wladziu Valentino [m] (1919-1987) U.S. showman (AA, GGG Jul 90, LS)
Liebman, Marvin [m] conservative activist, top aide to William F. Buckley (MH)
Lindsay, Vachel [m] (1879-1931) U.S. poet (GGG Jun 90)
Little Richard, [m] rock singer (*but* claims a Christian conversion expelled his homosexuality) (MH)
Livingston, Jenny [f] filmmaker (Paris Is Burning) (MH)
Locke, Alain [m] (1886-1954) U.S. writer (AA)
Locke, Richard [m] (1941- ) U.S. gay-porn star (GBOL-bro, GBOL-forces)
Loeb, Richard [m] (1907-1936) U.S. murder (with Leopold, Nat.) (NSGGG Oct 89)
Lorde, Audre [f] (1934- ) U.S. writer-activist (AA, TM, MH)
Loud, Lance [m] columnist; came out to his family on TV during 1973 PBS documentary series "An American Family" (MH)
Louganis, Greg [m] (1960- ) U.S. olympic diver (TM, MH)
Louis XIII [m] (1601-1643) French king (AA, NF)
Louise, Tina [f] (1934- ) U.S. actress (TM)
"Love and Rockets" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
"Love Tractor" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Lovett, Lyle [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Lowell, Amy [f] (1874-1925) U.S. poet (AA)
Lucius Cornelius Sulla [m] (138-78 BC) Roman Emperor (GGG Aug 92)
Ludwig II [m] (1845-1886) Bavarian king (AA, OOAT, NF)
Lully, Jean-Baptiste [m] (1632-1687) French composer (BOL, TM)
Lynde, Paul [m] (1926-1982) U.S. actor (TM)
Lyon, Phyllis [f] co-founder of the Daughters of Bilitis, first lesbian organization in the U.S. (MH)
MacDowell, Malcolm [m] Br. actor. an endless rumor about the gay droog panther (TM)
MacKaye, Ian, of "Minor Threat" [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Mackintosh, Cameron [m] (1946- ) British theatrical producer (GGG Dec 91)
Maclean, Donald [m] British spy (MH)
Madonna [f] (1958- ) U.S. gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Magnus VII [m] (1316-1373) Swedish king of Norway (GGG Jul 92)
Mahmud [m] (r: 997-1030) Ghazni (Afghani) emperor (NF)
Mapplethorpe, Robert [m] (1947-1989) U.S. photographer (GGG Feb 90)
Marais, Jean [m] French actor (MH)
Margoyles, Miriam [f] actress (MH)
Marlowe, Christopher [m] (1564-1593) British playwright (BOL, AA, OOAT, GGG Nov 90, TM)
Martin, Del [f] co-founder of the Daughters of Bilitis, first lesbian organization in the U.S. (MH)
Mass, Lawrence [m] (1946- ) U.S. doctor and writer (GGG Apr 92)
Mastroianni, Marcello [m] (1924- ) Italian actor (GBOL-once)
Mathis, Johnny [m] (1935- ) U.S. singer-composer (GGG Dec 88, MH)
Matlovich, Leonard [m] (1942- ) U.S. gay rights activist (GBOL-forces, GGG Jun 89)
Matusak, John [m] (____- ) U.S. wrestler (TM)
Maugham, W. Somerset [m] (1874-1965) British author (GGG Jun 89, AA)
Maupin, Armistead [m] (____- ) U.S. writer of "Tales of the City" serials (TM, MH)
Maxey, Glen [m] Texas state legislator (MH)
Mayes, Bernard [m] Episcopal priest, journalist, founding chairman of National Public Radio, now Asst. Dean of U.Va. College of Arts and Sciences (MH)
McCarthy, Joseph [m] (____-1957) U.S. congressman (OOAT, TM)
McCoy, Rev. Renee [f] African-American minister and activist (MH)
McCullers, Carson [m] (1917-1967) U.S. writer (GBOL-once)
McDermott, David [m] artist (MH)
McDowell, Roddy [m] (1928- ) British actor and ape (TM)
McFeeley, Tim [m] head of the Human Rights Campaign Fund (MH)
McFerrin, Bobby [m] (____- ) U.S. gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
McGillis, Kelly [f] (____- ) U.S. actor (TM)
McGough, Peter [m] artist (MH)
McKellen, Ian [m] (1939- ) British actor (GGG Sep 91, MH)
McKuen, Rod [m] (1933- ) U.S. poet (AA, GBOL-once, MH)
McNaught, Brian [m] writer (MH)
McNeill, Rev. John J. [m] Jesuit priest, scholar and writer (MH)
McNichol, Kristy [f] (1962- ) U.S. actress (TM, MH-not)
Mead, Margaret [f] (1901-1978) U.S. anthropologist (AA)
Mead, Taylor [m] poet and actor (MH)
Medley, Robert [m] painter (MH)
Mehmed (Muhammad) II [m] (r: 1451-1481) Ottoman sultan (NF)
Meigs, Mary [f] painter (MH)
Melchior, Lauritz [m] (1890-1973) Danish opera singer (GGG Oct 91)
Meldrum, Ian "Molly" [m] (____- ) Australian media personality (TM)
Melville, Herman [m] (1819-1891) U.S. author (GGG Aug 89, AA, OOAT)
Menotti, Gian Carlo [m] opera composer (MH)
Merchant, Ismail [m] British film producer (MH)
Mercury, Freddie [m] (____-1992) British singer from "Queen" (TM, LS)
Meredith, William [m] poet (MH)
Merrick, Gordon [m] (1916-1988) U.S. author (GGG Feb 89)
Merrill, James Ingram [m] poet (MH)
Michael II [m] (r: AD 741-775) Byzantine emperor (NF)
Michaels, Duane [m] photographer (MH)
Michelangelo Buonarroti [m] (1475-1564) Italian artist (AA)
Migden, Carole [f] San Francisco city supervisor (MH)
Milk, Harvey [m] (1930-1978) U.S. politician (AA, GBOL-forces, TM)
Millay, Edna St. Vincent [f] (1892-1950) U.S. poet (AA)
Miller, Merle [m] (1919-1986) U.S. writer (AA, BOL, GBOL-forces, TM)
Miller, Tim [m] One of the "NEA Four", performance artists whose federal grants were cut off because of "homoerotic" content in their work (MH)
Millet, Kate [f] (1934- ) U.S. author (BOL, TM, MH)
Millington, June [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Milton, John [m] (1608-1674) British author (BOL, TM)
Minkowitz, Donna [f] (____- ) U.S. Pulitzer nominee (TM, MH)
Mishima, Yukio [m] (1925-1970) Japanese writer (AA, GGG Jan 90)
Moliere [m] (1622-1673) French dramatist (AA)
Monette, Paul [m] novelist (MH)
Moorehead, Agnes [m] (1906-1974) U.S. actress (TM)
Moraga, Cherrie [f] writer (MH)
Morris, Mark [m] dancer and choreographer (MH)
Morrissey [m] (____- ) Musician, of "The Smiths" (LS, MH)
Mosbacher, Dee [f] activist; daughter of President Bush's campaign chairman and Secretary of Commerce (MH)
Mould, Bob /Husker Du/Sugar [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Moyet, Alison [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Murphy, Peter [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Mwanga [m] (r: 1884-1897) Bugandan (Ugandan) king (NF)
Nabors, Jim [m] (1933- ) U.S. actor (TM)
Navarre, Yves [m] French novelist (MH)
Navratilova, Martina [f] (1956- ) tennis player (various, TM, MH)
Near, Holly [f] (1949- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS, MH)
Nero [m] (r: AD 54-68) Roman emperor (NF)
Nerva [m] (r: Ad 96-98) Roman emperor (NF)
Nestle, Joan [f] writer (MH)
Newman, John Henry Cardinal [m] (1801-1890) Br religious leader (GGG Jan 92)
Nicholson, Harold [m] (1886-1968) British author-diplomat (BOL, TM)
Nicomedes IV [m] (r: early first century BC) Bithynian king (NF)
Nightingale, Florence [f] (1820-1910) British nurse (AA)
Nijinsky, Vaslav [m] (1890-1950) Polish ballet dancer (GGG Jan 92, AA, BOL, TM)
Nkoli, Simon [m] South African anti-apartheid activist (MH)
Noble, Elaine [f] first openly lesbian or gay person elected to a state legislature (Massachusetts, 1974) (MH)
Norse, Harold [m] poet (MH)
Novak, Kim [f] (1933- ) U.S. actress (TM)
Novarro, Ramon [m] (1899-1968) Mexican-U.S. silent movie actor (GGG Oct 88, TM)
Nugent, Richard Bruce [m] writer and artist (MH)
Nureyev, Rudolf [m] (____-1993) ballet star (MH)
Ochs, Robyn [ ] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Oda Nobunaga [m] (r: 1568-1582) Japanese military dictator (NF)
O'Dowd, Frank [m] (1951-1988) U.S. skater and tv producer (GGG Apr 92)
O'Hara, Frank [m] (1926-1966) U.S. poet (GBOL-forces)
Oliver, Mary [f] Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (MH)
Oliveros, Pauline [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Olivier, Lord Lawrence [m] (1907-1989) British actor (Spoto, GGG Dec 92)
Olson, Donald [m] writer (MH)
Orlovsky, Peter [m] (1933- ) U.S. poet (GBOL-forces)
Orton, Joe [m] (1933-1967) British playwright (AA, GGG Jan 90)
Ostertag, Bob [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Otho [m] (r: January-April AD 69) Roman emperor (NF)
Otto III [m] (AD 980-1002) German Holy Roman Emperor (GGG Jul 92)
Paglia, Camille [f] (1947- ) U.S. writer "Sexual Personae" (TM, MH)
Pallone, David [m] (____- ) U.S. ex-baseball umpire (TM, MH)
Palomo, Juan [m] newspaper columnist (MH)
-Paris, Bob Jackson- [m] (1960- ) U.S. pro model/bodybuilder (GGG Sep 91, TM, MH)
Parker, Al (Andrew Robert Okun) [m] (1952-1992) U.S. erotic-film maker (GGG Nov 91)
Pasolini, Pier Paolo [m] (1922-1975) Italian film director (AA, BOL, GGG Mar 91, TM)
Patrick, Robert [m] (1937- ) U.S? playwright "Kennedy's Children" (TM, MH)
Paul II [m] (1417-1471) Catholic pope (GBOL-popes, OOAT)
Paxton, Ross [m] artist (MH)
Pears, Peter [m] (1910-1986) British tenor (AA, TM)
Penteado, Darcy [m] Brazilian writer (MH)
Perkins, Anthony [m] (1932-1992) U.S. actor (GBOL-once)
Perry, Rev. Troy [m] (1940- ) U.S. M.C.C. founder (GBOL-forces, GGG Dec 91, MH)
"Pet Shop Boys, The" British musical group (LS, MH-not)
Peter the Great [m] (1672-1725) Russian czar (BOL, TM)
Peters, Robert [m] poet, critic and teacher (MH)
Peyrefitte, Roger [m] French writer (MH)
Phillips, Paul [m] of "Romanofsky and Phillips," folksinger (MH, LS)
Phranc [m] (____- ) Folksinger (LS, MH)
Pierce, Charles [m] female impersonator (MH)
Pindar [m] (518-438 BC) Greek lyric poet (GGG Mar 91)
Pinto, Jody [ ] artist (MH)
Plato [m] (427?-347 BC) Athenian philosopher (AA, GGG Oct 90)
Platt, Minnie Bruce [ ] poet and teacher (MH)
Pop, Iggy [m] rock star (MH)
Porter, Cole [m] (1891-1964) U.S. songwriter (GGG Aug 88, TM, LS)
Posner, Jill [f] photographer (MH)
Power, Tyrone [m] (1913-1958) U.S. actor (GBOL-forces)
Praunheim, Rosa von [m] German filmmaker (MH)
"Pretenders" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Price, Deb [f] Gannett newspapers columnist (MH)
Price, Edward Reynolds [m] novelist (MH)
Proust, Marcel [m] (1871-1922) French author (BOL, AA, GGG Oct 90, TM)
Pruitt, Dusty [f] sued military for reinstatement after expulsion for being gay (MH)
Przhevalsky, Nikolai [m] (1839-1888) Russian explorer (AA)
Ptolemy IV [m] (r: 145-144 BC) Greek king (NF)
Ptolemy VII [m] (r: 221-205 BC) Greek king (NF)
Quaintance, George [m] (1915-1957) U.S. artist (GGG Aug 88)
Quantz, J.J. [ ] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Radice, Anne-Imelda [f] acting head of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), appointed by President Bush (MH)
Rainey, Ma (Gertrude Pridgett) [f] (1886-1939) U.S. vocalist (AA, LS)
Rama VI [m] (r: 1910-1925) Thai king (NF)
Rasputin [m] (____-1916) Russian monk (OOAT)
Rechy, John [m] (1934- ) U.S. writer (GBOL-forces, MH)
Reed, Lou [m] rock star, of "Velvet Underground" (*but* now says he was just experimenting) (MH, LS)
"REM" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Renault, Mary [f] (1905-1983) British writer (AA)
Reno, [ ] comedian (MH)
"Rhiannon" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Rich, Adrienne [f] novelist (MH)
Richard I, the Lion Hearted [m] (1157-1199) English king (GGG Jan 92, BOL, NF, AA, TM)
Richard II [m] (1367-1400) English king (BOL, GGG Sep 92, TM)
Rickter, Sviatoslav [m] Russian pianist (MH)
Riggs, Marlon [m] (1957-1994) U.S. film-maker ("Tongues Untied") (TM, MH)
Rimbaud, Arthur [m] (1854-1891) French poet (AA, BOL, TM)
Ritts, Herb [m] (1952- ) U.S. photographer (TM, MH)
Rivers, Larry [m] painter and sculptor (MH)
Robbins, Harold [m] (1916- ) U.S. writer (GBOL-once)
Robespierre, Maximilien de [m] (1758-1794) French statesman (AA)
Robinson, Svend [m] (____- ) Canadian member of parliament (various, MH)
Robinson, Tom [m] singer/songwriter (MH)
Roditi, Edouard Herbert [m] writer (MH)
Rohm, Ernst [m] (1887-1934) German militarist (AA, BOL, OOAT, NSGGG Oct 89, TM)
Rolfe, Frederick, Baron Corvo [m] (1860-1913) British author (BOL, TM)
Romanofsky, Ron [m] of "Romanofsky and Phillips", folksinger (MH, LS)
Roosevelt, Eleanor [f] (1884-1962) U.S. first lady (OOAT, AA, GGG Jun 92)
Rorem, Ned [m] (1923- ) U.S. composer (AA, TM, MH)
Rowse, A. L. [ ] historian (MH)
Roy [m] of "Siegfried and Roy," comedian (MH, TM)
Rubinstein, William [m] gay-rights lawyer (MH)
Rudolf II [m] (r:1572/5/6-1608/11/12) Hungarian k/Bohemian k/H.R.Emperor (NF)
Rule, Jane [f] writer (MH)
Rumi, Jalal-Ud Din [m] (1207-1273) Persian poet (GGG Sep 91)
Russ, Joanna [f] feminist and science-fiction writer (MH)
Russo, Vito [m] (1946-1990) U.S. writer (GGG Apr 92)
Rustin, Bayard (1910-1987) U.S. civil rights activist (AA)
Rutherford, Paul [m] singer, "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" (MH, LS)
Sabato, Larry [m] political analyst and professor (MH-not)
Sackville-West, Victoria [f] (1892-1962) British author (BOL, TM)
Sade, Count Donatien Alphonse Francois de (Marquis de Sade) [m] (1740-1814) French writer (AA, NSGGG Apr 91)
"Saffire the Uppity Blues Women" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Saint-Laurent, Yves [m] fashion designer (MH)
Saint-Saens [m] (1835-1921) French composer (GGG Jun 91)
Sappho [f] (613?-565? BC) Greek poet (OOAT, AA, BOL, TM)
Sargent, Dick [m] (1933-1994) U.S. actor (various, TM, MH)
Sarria, Jose [m] drag entertainer; first openly gay candidate for public office in U.S. history (San Francisco, 1961) (MH)
Sarton, May [f] writer (MH)
Saslow, James M. [m] (1947- ) U.S. author (GGG Apr 92)
Satie, Erik [m] (1866-1925) French composer (TM)
Schatz, Ben [m] gay-rights lawyer (MH)
Scheinberg, Sidney [m] entertainment executive (MH-not)
Schlafly, John [m] son of anti-gay conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly and lawyer for her Eagle Forum organization (MH)
Schlesinger, John [m] (1926- ) British film director (GGG Oct 91, MH)
Schneider, Maria [f] actress (Last Tango in Paris) (MH)
Schubert, Franz [m] (1797-1828) Austrian composer (GGG May 91, LS)
Schulman, Sarah [f] (1958- ) U.S. novelist (GGG Jun 92)
Schulte, Steve [m] (1946- ) U.S. politician (AA)
Schuyler, James [m] poet (MH)
Scondras, David [m] Boston City Council member (MH)
Sebastian, Saint [m] (____-____) catholic Saint (TM)
Sebktigin [m] (10th Cen.) Ghaznavid Empire (Afghanistan) founder (NF)
Selleck, Tom [m] actor (MH-not)
Serrault, Michael [m] (1928- ) French actor (GBOL-once)
Shakespeare, William [m] (1564-1616) English playwright (AA "no proof")
Sher, Antony [m] actor (MH)
Shilts, Randy [m] journalist (The Mayor of Castro Street; And the Band Played On) (MH)
Shipp, John Wesley [m] (____- ) U.S. actor ("The Flash") (TM)
Shocked, Michelle [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS "maybe")
Siegfried [m] of "Siegfried and Roy," comedian (MH, TM)
Signorile, Michelangelo [m] U.S. journalist-activist, co-founder of Queer Nation (MH)
Silva, Aguinaldo [m] Brazilian writer (MH)
Sischy, Ingrid [f] (____- ) U.S. editor, INTERVIEW (TM, MH)
Sixtus IV (Francisco della Rovere) [m] (1414-1484) pope (OOAT, GBOL-popes)
Small, Fred [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Small, Judy [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Smith, Bessie [f] (1898?-1937) U.S. vocalist (AA, BOL, TM)
Smith, Christopher [m] member of the British Parliament (MH)
Socrates [m] (469?-399 BC) Athenian philosopher (AA, BOL, GGG Aug 89, TM)
Sodoma, Il (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi) [m] (1477-1549) Ital painter (GGG Apr 92)
"Soft Cell" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Sommerville, Jimmy [m] pop singer (Bronski Beat, The Communards) (MH, LS)
Sophocles [m] (496-406 BC) Greek tragedian (GGG May 90, BOL, TM)
Southerland, Lori [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Spada, James [m] writer (MH)
Spear, Allan [m] Minnesota state senator (MH)
Spender, Stephen [m] poet and critic (MH)
Sperr, Martin [m] German writer (MH)
Stael, Madame de [f] (1766-1817) French author (BOL, TM)
Stambolian, George [m] (1937-1991) U.S. writer/editor (GGG Jul 92)
Steffan, Joe [m] top Naval Academy cadet expelled for being gay, now suing for reinstatement (MH)
Stein, Gertrude [f] (1864-1946) U.S. writer (AA, OOAT, BOL, GGG Jun 92, TM)
Steward, Samuel "Phil Andros", writer (MH)
Stipe, Michael [m] lead singer of R.E.M. (MH-not)
Stoddard, Tom [m] gay-rights lawyer (MH)
Strachey, Lytton [m] (1880-1932) British biographer and critic (AA)
Stryker, Jeff [m] star of gay, straight and bi porno films (MH)
Studds, Gerry E. [m] (1937- ) U.S. politician (AA, TM, MH)
Suleiman the Magnificent [m] (1495?-1566) Ottoman emperor (OOAT)
Sullivan, Andrew [m] (____- ) U.S. editor: The New Republic (TM, MH)
Sullivan, Sir Arthur [m] (1842-1900) British composer (AA, GGG Jan 90)
Swann, Glenn [m] (1959- ) U.S. gay-porn star (GBOL-forces)
Sweeney, Terry [m] comedian (Saturday Night Live's Nancy Reagan) (MH)
"Sweet Honey in the Rock" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Swinburne, Algernon [m] (1837-1909) British poet (BOL, AA, TM)
Sylvester [m] (1946-1988) U.S. entertainer (GGG Sep 90, LS)
Symonds, John Addington [m] (1840-1893) British essayist & critic (AA, GGG Feb 90)
Takahashi, Mutsuo [m] Japanese poet (MH)
Takei, George [m] (____- ) U.S. actor (Mr Sulu in "Star Trek") (TM)
Tardi, Carla [f] artist (MH)
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich (1840-1893) Russian composer (OOAT, AA, GBOL-bro, BOL, TM, LS)
Teasdale, Sara [f] (1884-1933) U.S. poet (AA)
Tesla, Nikola [m] (1856-1943) Croatian scientist (GGG Apr 92)
Thomas, Betty [f] (1947- ) U.S. actress (TM)
Thompson, Dorothy [f] (1893-1961) U.S. journalist (AA)
Thompson, Karen [f] obtained custody of her disabled lover Sharon Kowalski after six-year court battle (MH)
Thompson, Scott [m] Canadian comedian (The Kids in the Hall) (MH)
"Thompson Twins" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Thorne, Lt. j.g. Tracy [f] U.S. Navy officer who came out on Nightline, now fighting expulsion (MH)
"Thrill Kill Kult" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Tiberius [m] (r: AD 14-37) Roman emperor (NF)
Tikaram, Tanita [ ] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS "maybe")
Tilden, William "Big Bill" [m] (1893-1953) U.S. tennis player (GGG Oct 88, BOL, AA, TM)
Tiny Tim [m] (1925- ) U.S. performer (GBOL-once)
Tippett, Mickael [m] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Toklas, Alice B. [f] (1877-1967) U.S. author-cook (BOL, TM)
Tokugawa Iemitsu [m] (r: 1622-1651) Japanese shogun (NF)
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi [m] (r: 1680-1709) Japanese shogun (NF)
Tolstoy, Leo [m] (1828-1910) Russian author (TM)
Tomlin, Lilly [f] (1939- ) U.S. entertainer (TM, MH-not)
Tournier, Michel [m] French writer (MH)
Townshend, Pete [m] (____- ) British musician, "The Who" (LS, MH)
Trajan [m] (r: AD 98-117) Roman emperor (NF)
Travanti, Daniel J. [m] (1940- ) U.S. actor (TM)
Travolta, John [m] (1954- ) U.S. actor and Scientologist (TM, MH-not)
Tress, Arthur [m] photographer (MH)
Tripp, C. A. [m] psychologist (author, The Homosexual Matrix) (MH)
Tryon, Tom [m] (1926-1991) U.S. actor-author (GGG Oct 92)
Tune, Tommy [m] Tony-winning Broadway singer/actor (MH)
Turing, Alan M. [m] (1912-1954) British mathematician (AA, GGG Sep 90, TM)
Tyler, Robin [f] comedian, producer and activist (MH)
"U2" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich [m] (1825-1895) German lawyer & gay right activist (AA, GGG Dec 88)
Vaid, Urvashi [ ] head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (MH)
Valentian III [m] (r: AD 425-455) Roman emperor (NF)
Valentino, Rudolph [m] (1895-1926) Italian-U.S. actor (AA)
Van Sant, Gus [m] (____- ) U.S. filmmaker (TM, MH)
Vega, Suzanne [f] (____- ) Gay/gay-positive musician (LS)
Verlaine, Paul [m] (1844-1896) French poet (BOL, TM)
Vidal, Gore [m] (1925- ) U.S. writer (TM, MH)
"Village People, The" [m,m,m,m] The members of the band (MH)
Visconti, Luchino [m] (1906-1976) Italian film director (AA)
Vivien, Renee [f] (1877-1909) French writer (AA)
"Voice Farm" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Voltaire [m] (1694-1778) French philosopher (GBOL-once)
von Humboldt, Alexander [m] (1769-1859) German naturalist (BOL, TM)
von Praunheim, Rosa [m] (1942- ) German filmmaker (GGG Aug 92)
von Romer, Lucien S.A.M. [m] (1873-1965) Dutch Sexologist (GGG May 92)
Waddell, Thomas [m] (1938-1987) U.S. athlete (AA, GGG Jun 91, GBOL-forces)
Wagner, Jane [f] playwright, life partner of Lily Tomlin (MH-not)
Walker, Alice [f] African-American novelist (MH-not)
Walpole, Horace [m] (1717-1797) British writer (AA)
Warhol, Andy [m] (1927-1987) U.S. artist (AA, GGG Oct 90, TM)
Washington, George [m] (1732-1799) U.S. president (AA "speculation")
"Washington Sisters, The" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Waters, John [m] filmmaker (Pink Flamingos; Polyester; Hairspray) (MH)
Watkins, Sgt. Perry (ret.), won Supreme Court case for reinstate-ment to Army after expulsion for being gay; African-American (MH)
Watney, Simon [m] (____- ) U.S? AIDS academic (TM)
Webb, Clifton [m] (1893-1966) U.S. actor (GGG Sep 92)
Weber, Bruce [m] (1942- ) U.S. photographer (TM)
Wei Wen [m] (r: AD 220-227) Chinese emperor (NF)
Weinberg, George [m] psychologist; coined the term "homophobia" in his book "Society and the Healthy Homosexual" (MH)
Welty, Eudora [f] (1909- ) U.S. writer (TM, MH)
Whale, James [m] (1896-1957) British-U.S. film director (GGG Feb 89, AA)
White, Edmund [m] (1940- ) U.S. author (GGG Dec 91, TM, MH)
Whitman, Walt [m] (1819-1892) U.S. poet (AA, BOL, GGG Nov 90, OOAT, TM)
Wieners, John [m] poet (MH)
Wilde, Dolly [f] (1899-1941) British wit (Oscar's niece) (AA)
Wilde, Oscar [m] (1854-1900) Irish dramatist & wit (AA, BOL, GGG Mar 91, TM)
Wilder, Thornton [m] (1897-1975) U.S. novelist (AA)
Wilhelm, Gale [f] novelist (MH)
William II Rufus [m] (1056-1100) English king (OOAT, AA, NF)
William III [m] (r: 1689-1702) British king (NF)
Williams, Jonathan [m] poet and teacher (MH)
Williams, Pete [m] Pentagon spokesman (MH-not)
Williams, Tennessee [m] (1911-1983) U.S. playwright (AA, BOL, TM)
Williamson, Chris [ ] (____- ) Folksinger (LS, MH)
Wilmer, Val [f] photographer and writer (MH)
Wilson, Millie [f] artist (MH)
Winant, Fran [f] artist (MH)
Winterson, Jeanette [f] novelist (MH)
Wittgenstein, Ludwig [m] (1889-1951) Austrian philosopher (AA)
Wittig, Monique [f] writer (MH)
Wollstonecraft, Mary [f] (1759-1797) British writer (AA)
Wong, B. D. [m] Tony-winning Broadway actor (M. Butterfly) (MH)
Woodlawn, Holly [f] actor in Andy Warhol films (MH)
Woolf, Virginia Stephens [f] (1882-1941) British writer (OOAT, BOL, AA. TM)
Woollcott, Alexander [m] (1887-1943) U.S. journalist & critic (AA)
Wu [m] (r: 140-86 BC) Chinese emperor (NF)
"XTC" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
"Yaz" Gay-positive/gay-membership musical group (LS)
Yourcenar, Marguerite [f] (1903-1987) French writer (AA, TM)
Zeno of Elea [m] (5th century BC) Greek philosopher (BOL, TM)

A Meaningful Life

"Seeking the truth and practicing compassion. That is the way to make life meaningful."

Are We Circling The Drain?

Stand Still for the Apocalypse

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Posted on Nov 26, 2012

AP/Elizabeth Dalziel

In much of the world, including China and the United States, dirty energy remains cheap and plentiful, with disastrous consequences.

By Chris Hedges

Humans must immediately implement a series of radical measures to halt carbon emissions or prepare for the collapse of entire ecosystems and the displacement, suffering and death of hundreds of millions of the globe’s inhabitants, according to a report commissioned by the World Bank. The continued failure to respond aggressively to climate change, the report warns, will mean that the planet will inevitably warm by at least 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, ushering in an apocalypse.

The 84-page document,“Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided,” was written for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics and published last week. The picture it paints of a world convulsed by rising temperatures is a mixture of mass chaos, systems collapse and medical suffering like that of the worst of the Black Plague, which in the 14th century killed 30 to 60 percent of Europe’s population.

A planetwide temperature rise of 4 degrees C—and the report notes that the tepidness of the emission pledges and commitments of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will make such an increase almost inevitable—will cause a precipitous drop in crop yields, along with the loss of many fish species, resulting in widespread hunger and starvation. Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to abandon their homes in coastal areas and on islands that will be submerged as the sea rises. There will be an explosion in diseases such as malaria, cholera and dengue fever. Devastating heat waves and droughts, as well as floods, especially in the tropics, will render parts of the Earth uninhabitable. The rain forest covering the Amazon basin will disappear. Coral reefs will vanish. Numerous animal and plant species, many of which are vital to sustaining human populations, will become extinct. Monstrous storms will eradicate biodiversity, along with whole cities and communities. And as these extreme events begin to occur simultaneously in different regions of the world, the report finds, there will be “unprecedented stresses on human systems.” Global agricultural production will eventually not be able to compensate. Health and emergency systems, as well as institutions designed to maintain social cohesion and law and order, will crumble. The world’s poor, at first, will suffer the most. But we all will succumb in the end to the folly and hubris of the Industrial Age. And yet, we do nothing.

“It is useful to recall that a global mean temperature increase of 4°C approaches the difference between temperatures today and those of the last ice age, when much of central Europe and the northern United States were covered with kilometers of ice and global mean temperatures were about 4.5°C to 7°C lower,” the report reads. “And this magnitude of climate change—human induced—is occurring over a century, not millennia.”

The political and corporate elites in the industrialized world continue, in spite of overwhelming scientific data, to place short-term corporate profit and expediency before the protection of human life and the ecosystem. The fossil fuel industry is permitted to determine our relationship to the natural world, dooming future generations. Carbon dioxide (CO₂), the main greenhouse gas, increased from its pre-industrial concentration of about 278 parts per million (ppm) to more than 391 ppm in September 2012, with the rate of rise now at 1.8 ppm per year. We have already passed the tipping point of 350 ppm; above that level, life as we have known it cannot be sustained. The CO₂ concentration is higher now than at any time in the last 15 million years. The emissions of CO₂, currently about 35 billion metric tons per year, are projected to climb to 41 billion metric tons per year by 2020. 

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Because about 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by the greenhouse effect since 1955 is momentarily in the oceans, we have begun a process that, even if we halted all carbon emissions today, will ensure rising sea levels and major climate disruptions, including the continued melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets as well as the acidification of the oceans. The report estimates that if warming accelerates toward 4 degrees Celsius, sea levels will rise 0.5 to 1 meter, possibly more, by 2100. Sea levels will increase several meters more in the coming centuries. If warming can be keep to 2 degrees or below, sea levels will still rise, by about 20 centimeters by 2100, and probably will continue to rise between 1.5 and 4 meters above present-day levels by the year 2300. Sea-level rise, the report concludes, is likely to be below 2 meters only if warming is kept to well below 1.5 degrees. The rise in sea levels will not be uniform. Coastal areas in tropical regions will be inundated by sea-level rises that are up to 20 percent higher than those in higher latitudes.

“In particular, the melting of the ice sheets will reduce the gravitational pull on the ocean toward the ice sheets and, as a consequence, ocean water will tend to gravitate toward the Equator,” the report reads. “Changes in wind and ocean currents due to global warming and other factors will also affect regional sea-level rise, as will patterns of ocean heat uptake and warming. Sea-level rise impacts are projected to be asymmetrical even within regions and countries. Of the impacts projected for 31 developing countries, only 10 cities account for two-thirds of the total exposure to extreme floods. Highly vulnerable cities are to be found in Mozambique, Madagascar, Mexico, Venezuela, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. For small island states and river delta regions, rising sea levels are likely to have far ranging adverse consequences, especially when combined with the projected increased intensity of tropical cyclones in many tropical regions, other extreme weather events, and climate change-induced effects on oceanic ecosystems (for example, loss of protective reefs due to temperature increases and ocean acidification).”

“By the time the concentration reaches around 550 ppm (corresponding to a warming of about 2.4°C in the 2060s), it is likely that coral reefs in many areas would start to dissolve,” the report reads. “The combination of thermally induced bleaching events, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise threatens large fractions of coral reefs even at 1.5°C global warming. The regional extinction of entire coral reef eco-systems, which could occur well before 4°C is reached, would have profound consequences for their dependent species and for the people who depend on them for food, income, tourism, and shoreline protection.” The report projects that the rates of change in ocean acidity over the next century will be “unparalleled in Earth’s history.”
The global production of maize and wheat has, because of rising temperatures, been in steady decline since the 1980s. But these crop declines will be vastly accelerated in the coming years, with rising temperatures resulting in widespread malnutrition and starvation. It will mean that the poor, and especially children, will endure chronic hunger and malnutrition. There will be an increase in a variety of deadly epidemic diseases. Persistent flooding will contaminate drinking water, spreading diarrheal and respiratory illnesses. The 2012 drought, which affected 80 percent of the agricultural land in the United States, will become the norm. Tropical South America, Central Africa and all tropical islands in the Pacific are, the report says, likely to regularly experience heat waves of unprecedented magnitude, making human life in these areas difficult if not impossible to sustain.
“In this new high-temperature climate regime, the coolest months are likely to be substantially warmer than the warmest months at the end of the 20th century,” the report reads. “In regions such as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Tibetan plateau, almost all summer months are likely to be warmer than the most extreme heat waves presently experienced. For example, the warmest July in the Mediterranean region could be 9°C warmer than today’s warmest July.” It notes that these changes “potentially exceed the adaptive capacities of many societies and natural systems.”
The stress and insecurity caused by the breakdown in the climate will, the report says, “have negative effects on psychological and mental health.” It will lead to an increase in “levels of conflict and violence.” These changes “will have ramifications for national identification and alter the dynamics of traditional cultures.”

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The report calls on the leaders of the industrial world to immediately institute radical steps—including a halt to the dependence on fossil fuels—to keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees C, although the report concedes that even an increase of less than 2 degrees would result in serious damage to the environment and human populations. Without a massive investment in green infrastructure that can adapt to the heat and other new extreme weather, and in the building of efficient public transportation networks and renewable energy systems to minimize carbon emissions, we will succumb to our own stupidity. 
A failure to respond will assure an ecological nightmare that will most probably be accompanied by an economic, social and political breakdown. The human species, the report says, will cross “critical social system thresholds,” and “existing institutions that would have supported adaptation actions would likely become much less effective or even collapse.” The “stresses on human health, such as heat waves, malnutrition, and decreasing quality of drinking water due to seawater intrusion, have the potential to overburden health-care systems to a point where adaptation is no longer possible, and dislocation is forced.”
“There is also no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible,” it goes on. “A 4°C world is likely to be one in which communities, cities and countries would experience severe disruptions, damage, and dislocation, with many of these risks spread unequally. It is likely that the poor will suffer most and the global community could become more fractured, and unequal than today. The projected 4°C warming simply must not be allowed to occur—the heat must be turned down.”

What Can Be Done?

This swirling universe
Parade of color and sound...
Attuned to shifting
Rhythm of heart...
Heart drunk with a fools brew
Of pain and sorrow...
Careening wildly as if
Captained by a lunatic... 
Pushing up from the secret depths...
Bruising tender, encapsulating flesh...
Pain so acute it feels like fainting!
What can be done with this flailing heart?
What balm is there
To mend this brokenness...
To still the reckless gallop long enough
For scab to scar and then to heal?
What hand to guide this little heaving boat?
What eyes consider compass
And direction?
Is there an unknown destination
Out beyond the horizon...
Where someone stands, willing 
To catch a life line
That can moor this tenderness
To solid ground...?

William Stanhope
Hawkscry
11/25/12

Cougar siighting

Today, while working at Hawkscry I saw a cougar! I was arranging the prayer flag poles around the stump of an old black walnut, placing tall bamboo poles in a circle around the base so that the colorful flags could wave in the breeze. I heard a rrustling in the undergrowth at the edge of the property and looked up to see a 50-60 pound cougar skirt the entire length of the property up to the garden shed, before disappearing behind the reservoir. I also hear another rustling which emanated from the same original location, but no cat appeared, probably because at that point I stood tall and began walking toward Cara. I did not want her rushing the cat! It was the most wild animal I have seen thus far here after all these 25 years. Truly majestic and pure in its purpose and element. I wanted to believe this was sent to me for a reason. I looked up the significance of the cougar in a totem and found the following:

Muscles rippling, free on the mountains,
Great cat of cunning, hunting and seeking,
Teach me quietness and stealth of purpose.
Show me the secrets of quiet magic. 

Leadership

This is a very powerful, but very difficult totem. 
Cougar medicine is the lesson of the use of power,
how to be an effective, fair leader and not abuse power.

 This totem’s gift is how to balance power, intention, strength and grace.  

It is the balance of body, mind and spirit.  
The first responsibility of leadership is truth. 
Remember:  Responsibility is no more than the ability to respond to any situation. 
Cougar can teach you how to bring out your power
and fill your heart with it that will enable you to take charge of your life. 
You can use Cougar power to defend yourself or to attack. 

Self-protective clinging

Shedding Self-Protective Clinging

Too often Buddhist 'nonattachment' is misconstrued as 'non-loving.' The purpose of Buddhist practice is not to 'renounce' our families or community, but to shed habits of self-protective clinging that prevent us from loving them more unconditionally, powerfully, enjoyably.

- Lama John Makransky, "Family Practice"

In my own life I can certainly attest to the very negative effects of clinging to certain ideas thus inevitably inviting  considerable suffering. Letting go of these ideas, though they have a negative overall influence in one's life, can feel a bit like jumping out of the ship into the unknown depths. Such abandoning of familiar surroundings can seem quite counter intuitive almost like committing a kind of personal suicide. The truth is, it is a kind of personal suicide; a suicide of ego. The ego has a certain set of expectations concerning reality and how one fits into that reality. In fact though, the reality we cling to sometimes so desperately is only a construct of our minds seeking to make sense of such an impermanent situation. The ego is doomed to utterly disappear and this creates clinging, though of course we know the clinging is pointless in the end. There is no way to claw ourselves back on to solid ground. 

I have recently had to jump ship in certain areas of my life because the ideas I had were causing me to suffer terribly. It became obvious that holding on to these ideas was going to bring about even more suffering and I felt that I needed to act in a way that might reverse that direction. It feels at times that I went about it in a very unskillful way. It feels at times that I made this decision to "jump ship" out of fear rather than courage. Certainly such actions do not bring about an immediate resolution to the emotional turmoil, but my hope is that new possibilities will manifest themselves where space has been created. 

Lincoln's Complex Sexuality

Lincoln, ever the beloved and fascinating sixteenth president who is very nearly deified for his pivotal role in ending America's Civil War, once again, comes alive in the film Lincoln by Steven Speilberg. The film does an admirable job in depicting the man but does little to shed light on the emotional complexities other than to show the ample reasons that may have contributed to his melancholic personality. But there may be more to the already complex man, as some historians have suggested, notably C.A. Tripp who analyses in detail several of Lincoln's close male relationships, in particular his connection to Joshua Speed, with whom Lincoln lived for 4 years and shared a bed and who remained a friend to Lincoln until his death. Considerable documentation exists to support the notion that the two men were indeed close emotional intimates. It is perhaps a stretch to attribute homo-erotic behavior between the two, but it is not out of the question. In the mid 19th century it was not uncommon for men to sleep two to a bunk. Furthermore, very close relationships developed between men partly in response to the strictures that existed between men and women in the Victorian era. Male/Female behavior was certainly more highly scripted than male/male behavior. Still, historians prevaricate somewhat on this issue. Both L Kramer (see below) and Tripp suggest that there is new and never before seen primary evidence that points to a true homosexual involvement between Speed and Lincoln. We shall see. In the meantime, one is left to consider how this new information might be important.. There is something personally comforting knowing that Lincoln was a gay man. Why? For so long the message about gay people was (and in some quarters still is) that they were incapable of being anything but broken. They had nothing to offer society. They certainly could not be trusted. They were not capable of inspiring others and they could not ever become a hero. Well apparently that is not true. I suspect there were a goodly number of men who loved other men in our country's history, but their homosexuality was conveniently written out of history because it did not fit the particular sensibilities and cultural bias of the time. Perhaps this is the beginning of a historical thaw which will allow the flesh and blood human to emerge from the sanitized pages of revisionist history. Imagine the effect this would have if we read in school that certain important historical figures were gay!. I can only guess that this would reduce if not eliminate prejudice against gay people. WPS

FromSalon Magazine, May 3, 1999

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 Was Lincoln gay?  Firebrand Larry Kramer says he has the evidence to prove it. Lincoln scholars are holding their fire until they see it. Get ready for the second Civil War.

By Carol Lloyd

The 28-year-old traveler was tall, with rough hands, a chiseled jaw and unforgettable, deep-set, melancholy eyes. He arrived in town, his worldly possessions in two battered suitcases, and inquired at a general store about buying some bedding. But the price was far beyond his budget. The strikingly handsome 23-year-old merchant took pity on the man and invited him into his own bed, free of charge, which happened to be just upstairs. The traveler inspected the bed and, looking into the merchant's sparkling blue eyes, agreed on the spot. For the next four years the two men shared that bed along with their most private fears and desires.

If this sounds like the opening of a homoerotic dime-store novel whose subsequent scenes feature fiery loins and ecstatic eruptions, hold your panting. The year is 1837, the place Springfield, Ill., and the leading men none other than our 16th presdent, Abraham Lincoln, and his lifelong friend Joshua Speed.
It is a story that historians have told and retold, puzzled over and reinterpreted, dismissed and decorated. Some describe Lincoln's acceptance of Joshua Speed's generous offer as terse and matter-of-fact; others as beaming and emotional. What none of them questions is that Lincoln and Speed's years of living together cemented a friendship unparalleled in its intimacy and tenderness in Lincoln's life. So far, all major historians have stopped short of intimating that Lincoln was ever involved in a romantic affair with a man, in fact, they explicitlydiscourage such interpretations.
But Larry Kramer, the 62-year-old gay rights hell-raiser, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter ("Women in Love") and Pulitzer-nominated playwright ("The Normal Heart"), wants to change all that. In February, at a gay and lesbian conference in Madison, Wis., he read a portion of his unfinished book, "The American People", which, in the course of describing the history of gays in early America, avers that Lincoln and Speed were not merely bedfellows but lovers.
"There's no question in my mind he was a gay man and a totally gay man," Kramer declares. "It wasn't just a period, but something that went on his whole life."
Like the rumors that Thomas Jefferson had sired the children of his young slave Sally Hemings, questions about Speed and Lincoln's relationship have circulated for years. In "Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years" (1926), Carl Sandberg wrote that their relationship had "a streak of lavender and spots soft as May violets," which some have taken as a veiled reference to homosexuality. In 1995, just after Bob Dole rejected campaign contributions from the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, Log Cabin member W. Scott Thompson was quoted in the New York Times as saying that gays should feel welcome in the party, "given that the founder was gay." Novelist Paul Russell, author of "The Gay 100," a ranking of the world's most important gay figures, also investigated the rumors but chose not to include Lincoln, feeling that the case was not strong enough, though he did include questionable figures like Shakespeare and Madonna. In an interview that will appear in a forthcoming anthology called "Sexual Writings by Gore Vidal," Gore Vidal told Kramer some years ago that during the research for the historical novel "Lincoln," Vidal too began to suspect that Lincoln was gay.
Like most of Lincoln's early private life, the story of his friendship with Speed is a murky one, although not nearly as murky as Lincoln's early liaisons with women. After four years of living in intimate quarters, Speed announced plans to sell the store and return to his home in Kentucky, where his family owned a large plantation. Lincoln, who was notoriously awkward and shy around women, was at the time engaged to a vivacious, if temperamental, society girl named Mary Todd, but as the date of Speed's departure and the marriage approached, Lincoln cracked. He wanted to break the engagement by letter, but at Speed's entreaty, he went to Mary Todd and told her face to face he did not love her. Some argue that Lincoln had fallen in love with another woman. Soon after, Speed departed, leaving Lincoln mired in depression and guilt.
Seven months later Lincoln traveled to Speed's home in Kentucky, where he spent a month being nursed back to health. After that the two men corresponded affectionately for decades, chronicling their most personal internal conflicts, including their abject fear of marriage, which they ominously refer to in their correspondence (always emphasized) as forebodings.Speed was the first to approach the altar successfully, an ordeal that Lincoln coached him through with tender but not altogether convincing letters of encouragement. It seemed that Speed was on the verge of a premarital meltdown similar to Lincoln's. "If you went through the ceremony calmly, or even with sufficient composure not to excite alarm in anyone present, you are safe, beyond question" Lincoln wrote just after the date of Speed's betrothal, "and in two or three months, to say the most, will be the happiest of men." Subsequent clandestine letters inquired whether Speed really was "happier or, if you think the term preferable, less miserable." Both men eventually married and had children; they remained close until they had a falling-out in 1855 over the issue of slavery.
A shared bed, tortured secret letters and a fear of women... what more proof could scholars want?
Real evidence, they say. First, the shared bed is meaningless, most argue, since in the 19th century American frontiersmen often slept two and three to a bed for purely economic reasons. "It was very common for men to share the same bed in the 1800s, especially in taverns," says Gene Griessman, author of "The Words Lincoln Lived By" (Simon & Schuster, 1997). "We know that Lincoln had a long, affectionate friendship with Speed. He deeply loved the man, but to go beyond that fact is to go beyond any evidence I have seen."
"It sounds like this might be a case of taking a 19th century event and giving it a 20th century context," says Douglas Wilson, author of "Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln" and co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox Collegein Galesburg, Ill. Wilson adds that this trend of seeing the past in terms of the present (what historians call "presentism") has seen a recent revival, with the controversy over Jefferson's alleged relationship with Sally Hemings and the "outing" of Walt Whitman.
Other scholars believe that such cozy sleeping arrangements did reflect a distinct emotional landscape for men, but didn't necessarily lead to hot homo lovemaking. "There was a lot of male homoerotic desire in the middle of the 19th century," says UC-Berkeley political scientist Michael Rogin. "There may be evidence of male-male desire, but that's not gay. If 'gay' is going to mean anything it's got to mean orgasms with other men. There's got to be some sense of transgression and forbiddenness."
In an era obsessed with the fine points of identity nomenclature, exactly what constitutes mid-19th-century homosexuality is a sticky question. Can homosexuality, be it queer, gay or radical fairy butch, even exist without a name? And can it exist without self-identification on the part of the lover? Can it exist simply through desire, or must those desires be consummated?
Kramer has little patience for such theoretical hairsplitting. "I do not think that people were different starting with the Garden of Eden," he says. "Why do we imagine that people were these naive asexual beings before the 20th century? Lincoln had a lot of sex." Kramer doesn't pretend to be a Lincoln scholar or even an objective researcher. ("I have read all the biographies, and they are full of shit," he spits, and derides Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln scholar David Herbert Donald as "some dried old heterosexual prune at Harvard.") He's an unabashed gay rabble-rouser, beating the bushes of history to find gay heroes. But if he really does have the new primary sources he claims to, even the staunchest defenders of Lincoln's heterosexuality may be forced to reconsider. Kramer claims to have a trump card, a smoking gun: a hitherto unknown Joshua Speed diary, as well as a stash of letters in which Speed writes explicitly about his love affair with Lincoln. The secret pages, which were discovered hidden beneath the floorboards of the old store where the two men lived, now are said to reside in a private collection in Davenport, Iowa.
No sooner has Kramer mentioned the discovery and location of the papers than he grumbles, "That's already more than I wish I had said." Kramer is ambivalent about airing the entire subject. Even the reading, he explains, was a spur-of-the-moment stopgap measure to save him the trouble of writing another speech for a second appearance at the conference. "I didn't know there were any reporters there," he says, "and I didn't let anyone tape it."
Although Kramer refuses to share any portions of these documents, the Capital Times in Madison reported some of the juicier quotes from the reading: "He often kisses me when I tease him, often to shut me up. He would grab me up by his long arms and hug and hug," Speed reportedly wrote. Addressing his dear friend as "Linc," Speed allegedly described the young politician as a man who couldn't get enough hugging and kissing: "Yes, our Abe is like a school girl." Kramer also attested that Speed recounted conversations in which the two men wondered whether other men, too, had relationships like theirs.
Whether these quotes prove that Lincoln was gay is debatable, although, of course, Kramer may possess others that are more explicit. But he goes further: He not only claims that honest, rail-splitting, nation-uniting Abe was a proto-bossy bottom, but that there existed a whole 19th century gay frontier subculture. For example, he says there was an underground travel agency that arranged for small groups of man-loving men to travel into the wilderness for nature appreciation and other earthy pleasures. Both Lincoln and Speed, Kramer says, frequented these camping trips while living in Springfield. In one circular, which Kramer shared by phone, a man named "Dapper Dan from Kansas" invited "fellow travelers" on a "holiday journey" to sleep outdoors. The passage he read was certainly suggestive but hardly explicit.
Repeating a claim long circulated in the gay community, if not in Hamilton scholarship, Kramer also claims that Alexander Hamilton was "essentially a cock-tease."
All these assertions, however, pale in the face of Kramer's most outrageous theory: that Lincoln's murder may have been a kind of gay-bashing, resulting from a kinky sexual set-up. "There's some evidence that shows that Speed presented Booth to Lincoln as a 'present' and the young Booth, who was a gorgeous man, was virulently homophobic, like the men who killed Matthew Shepard," he says. "If the murder turns out to have had a homosexual underpinning, that's going to freak everybody out."
Seemingly outlandish claims like these, along with the fact that Kramer is not by any conventional definition a scholar, obviously raise questions about his historical judgment and probity. Isn't Kramer just a propagandist,laboring mightily to turn the 1800s into 18th and Castro?
Interestingly, however, Lincoln scholars have largely held their fire even when confronted with Kramer's more extreme claims. "That's pretty wild," says Douglas Wilson of the Lincoln-Booth theory. "If Lincoln and Booth had ever met, I would have thought we would have known more about it. But all ideas are welcome; you learn more when people argue."
Arguments coming from Larry Kramer tend to have a special vehemence. Long a lightning rod for controversy both within and without the gay community, Kramer knows how to play his cards for all they're worth, although playing them close to his chest is not his strong suit. After founding ACT-UP and the Gay Men's Health Crisis, two staggeringly influential organizations within the gay community, Kramer assailed the Reagan administration, the medical establishment and heterosexuals in general (whom he referred to as "they") with razor pen and acid tongue. Just as often, he attacked his own community; his conflicts with factions of the two organizations he founded erupted into public spectacles of ire and recrimination. No setting was too sacrosanct for Kramer to tell his angry truths, as evidenced by a eulogy he once gave in which he accused the gathering of mourners (including himself) of murdering the deceased with their complacency and passivity.
Compared to those days of high dudgeon and real crisis, it seems odd that Kramer is so anxious about his scholarly crusade to out a dead president. Why won't he share his evidence? His explanations vary from wanting to protect the poor folks of Davenport from a mob of Lincoln lunatics to simply wanting to finish his monster-in-the-box book (now 2,000 pages long and at least five years away from being finished) in peace. He's also planning to submit a short excerpt of the Lincoln material to magazines this fall. But when pressed, he confesses that he fears the vitriol, or worse, that may rain down upon him from outraged defenders of Lincoln's sullied honor. "Don't tell them where I live," he adds at the end of one phone conversation, with no hint of irony.
It's possible that Kramer was led to some of his evidence by a more respectable scholar, C.A. Tripp, the elderly author of the groundbreaking "The Homosexual Matrix." Kramer admits that he hopes a forthcoming book by Tripp comes out before his own. Tripp's book also plans to drag Lincoln out of the closet, but according to Kramer, it will do so with a good deal more scholarly muscle and nuance. Kramer says Tripp has evidence that Lincoln had not just one, but numerous homoerotic relationships throughout his life. Unlike Kramer, however, he does not construe these ongoing sexual encounters as self-consciously homosexual. Speaking by phone from his home in New Jersey, Tripp refuses to "drop any pearls" before his book is finished. "It's too far away," he says, "about two years."
When told that Kramer had expressed enthusiasm about Tripp's findings, Tripp snarls good-naturedly: "Of course he did. Kramer's a propagandist. And that's all I have to say." He does acknowledge, however, that his research was based on "absolutely new" primary sources that no other historian has yet to see.
All this talk of new primary sources makes the Lincoln history establishment curious despite their skepticism.
"It's possible there is something else, but I would be very surprised," says Michael Burlingame, author of the "Inner World of Abraham Lincoln" and history professor at Connecticut College. "If there's a Joshua Speed diary, then I'm eager to see it." Indeed, Burlingame is one volume into a three-volume account of Lincoln's life; presumably such findings might guide his current project in new directions.
Burlingame is familiar with Tripp's work and despite his "enormous respect for the man," he disagrees with his ideas about Lincoln's sexual orientation. "Speed and Lincoln were close emotionally but their letters have no discernable romantic overtones," he says. "Besides, there is too much evidence that Lincoln was strongly attracted to women." By way of example he cites the fact that Lincoln was a "proto-feminist," fell "head over heels in love with 18-year-old Matilda Edwards" and loved a beautiful young woman named Ann Rutledge.
Such evidence, however, can be interpreted several ways. Heterosexual men have never had a corner on the market for feminist-friendly attitudes; in fact, one might argue that proto-homosexual men might better sympathize with the plights of proto-feminist women. Moreover, some historians reject the tale of his love for Matilda Edwards as a paranoid fantasy that Mary Todd Lincoln concocted to explain why Lincoln abandoned her at the altar. In "Lincoln," David Herbert Donald suggests that there was "no real justification" to think that Lincoln had fallen in love with her and that Edwards had expressly denied that he ever "even stooped to pay [her] a compliment." In turn, Douglas Wilson calls Donald's refusal to deal with the Edwards evidence "just hopeless."
Historians also posit wildly different scenarios regarding the doomed Ann Rutledge. All evidence comes from third-hand accounts that held that Lincoln became acquainted with her while she was still engaged to another man. Soon afterwards, she fell ill; Lincoln sat by her bedside for the last two days of her life. Some contend the two were on their way to being engaged, others that Lincoln might have befriended her simply because she was already spoken for. Others say her death left him a devastated man who, at least from a romantic perspective, never recovered. Yet as Kramer is quick to point out, not a single letter exists between Rutledge and Lincoln, and in the thousand pages of Lincoln's personal correspondence, he never once mentions her name.
Finally, in chronicling the proof of Lincoln's heterosexual romances, historians are split in their interpretation of his marriage to the volatile, possibly insane, drug-addled Mary Todd Lincoln. By all accounts the couple had a difficult, turbulent relationship, but over the course of 10 years they managed to bear four children. Some historians paint theirs as a difficult but loving bond; others as the quintessential marriage from hell. Douglas Wilson gives credence to stories that Lincoln visited prostitutes during his marriage and later believed himself to have contracted syphilis. David Herbert Donald, in contrast, paints Lincoln as a faithful, if not exactly doting, husband.
All of these heterosexist interpretations get Kramer foaming at the mouth. "Why is their version so much more believable than mine? So much of the history that is shoveled into the world is bullshit, we really have to invent our own."
Do such overt desires for a specific outcome make it impossible for Kramer to separate fact from wishful thinking? That was the charge leveled against those who initially argued that Walt Whitman was a 19th century homosexual. At first this idea was derided as far-fetched propaganda, but it is now largely accepted (although academics continue to debate whether it is legitimate to call Whitman "gay").
But does it really matter if Lincoln was gay? What difference does it make if the man who reunited the country, ended slavery, wrote some of the most majestic speeches in the English language and died a martyr's death desired (or actually had sex with) other men? According to Illinois state historian Tom Schwarz, it doesn't make any difference: "It's only important if he made conscious decisions based on his sexuality which then influenced his political behavior, public policy or his decisions on slavery. If not, its importance readily diminishes."
Schwarz's politic words, however, don't take into account the enormous symbolic significance that will attend any reevaluation of the sexual orientation of America's most beloved figure. Imagine if the Hemings-Jefferson love affair had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt (which, as scientists continue to remind us, still hasn't happened) in the Jim Crow 1950s, when certain states still prosecuted miscegenation? Bigots would have had one less legendary leg to stand on. Similarly, if the man on our $5 bill was proven to be gay, right-wing politicians who invoke Lincoln in one breath and denounce the homosexual menace in the next would be forced to reexamine the deeper meaning of the phrase "with charity towards all, with malice towards none." Certainly, for queer theorists and gay scholars, the ability to claim the man who was arguably America's greatest president as their own would arm gay battalions with a powerful new rhetorical weapon.
"Greatest" is the operative word here. When Kramer first announced at the Madison meeting that he was setting out to get gays their "first gay president," he could have made his job easier by looking to Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan. The only bachelor to take office, Buchanan spent 15 years, including some of those in the White House, living with Sen. William King. When King died Buchanan went into a tailspin, neglecting his executive duties; his already ineffectual presidency derailed. The contemporary press ridiculed the men's relationship mercilessly, and Andrew Jackson once called King "Miss Nancy." The problem, of course, is that James Buchanan is not the guy to stake a modern civil rights movement on. Passive and ineffectual, he slowly but surely led the country into a bloody civil war. Despite the fact that it was "obvious" that Buchanan was gay, Paul Russel says he chose not to include him in "The Gay 100"; he just wasn't anything to be proud of.
One equally controversial gay figure did make it into the book: none other than the fire-breathing Larry Kramer. In fact, he's the highest-ranked of all living people on the list. "A lot of people wouldn't agree with that," Kramer mutters when informed of this fact.
In similar fashion, many of Lincoln's contemporary enemies would have seen the deification of the rough-hewn, socially awkward president as the worst kind of historical revisionism. But as Kramer knows, from a political perspective, revisionist history is the only kind of history that counts.

Note: If you got this far you may enjoy another article written by Gore Vidal (author of The Stone and the Pillar) printed in The Vanity Faire. Click here to see the article.