Guardian Unlimited features a piece on a conference held yesterday which examined Lincoln’s sexuality.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – It must have been the first conference in the history of Abraham Lincoln scholarship to call the Great Emancipator “a terrifically sexual guy.”

Addressing the nation’s top Lincoln scholars on Sunday, two historians defended a new book that claims Lincoln was gay and called for more research into his sexuality.

“I could build a Lincoln Log cabin of homophobic denial,” said Civil War historian Michael Chesson. “There’s been a cover-up, a conspiracy of silence for experts to hide what they regard as dirty linen in Abe’s faded carpetbag.”

The reason for the discussion – part of a conference held in conjunction with the opening of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum – is a new book called “The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln.”

Author and sociologist C.A. Tripp, who died before the book was published, examined Lincoln’s poetry, the recollections of those who knew him and his relationships with other men and concluded Lincoln was “predominantly homosexual.”

Tripp goes into more detail, but he was not the first person to speculate on the subject.

Scholars have long wondered about the relationship between Lincoln and Joshua Speed. The two men slept in the same bed for four years in Springfield and developed a deep friendship.

read more

The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln was recently released.