This Guy: UPDATE -- Adam Phillips

Thanks to Red Sierra . . .

That is Mr. Adam Phillips - model extraordinaire! Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Adam-Phillips-Model-224471841010583/

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The Obvious Sexuality of Former Leaders

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-wertime/china-to-join-the-west-in_b_8924594.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

A 2005 review of Tripp's work published in the New York Times accurately noted that modern notions of homosexuality don't apply to Lincoln's era...assigning modern notions of sexuality to a time when "men could be openly affectionate with one another, physically and verbally, without having to stake their identity on it," [WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING FOREVER!]

China to Join the West -- in Denying the Obvious Sexuality of Former Leaders

Geoffrey Wertime
Attorney and writer
Posted: 01/08/2016 4:13 pm EST

A new book slated for release in Hong Kong next year is bringing China into yet another modern, Western tradition: arguing over the sexual orientation of its former leaders.

In The Secret Emotional Life of Zhou Enlai, Hong Kong author Tsoi Wing-mui reportedly posits that Zhou, mainland China's first Premier and a fellow revolutionary alongside Mao Zedong, was secretly gay. Zhou was born in 1898, "100 years early" to be an openly gay politician, Tsoi writes.

Zhou Enlai in 1917
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tsoi draws her conclusions from her analysis of Zhou's journals, particularly his recorded fondness for his junior schoolmate Li Fujing, without whom Zhou wrote he could not live, and who Zhou wrote could "turn sorrow into joy," a sharp contrast with Zhou's apparently lackluster feelings for his wife. Unsurprisingly, Tsoi's reading differs from that of the more traditional historians of mainland China, who have had decades to mull the same material. What Tsoi brings to the table as a former executive editor of the liberal Open Magazine and an apparent chronicler of gay issues is an understanding of queer reality and a willingness to remark upon it. In this way, she is like American agitators who have pointed out gay threads in their own past, often to the doubt and even derision of mainstream scholars in the West.

America has had at least two arguably gay presidents: Abraham Lincoln and James Buchanan. There is ample historical evidence that both were, at the very least, bisexual. And in both cases, the historical mainstream has strongly resisted the call to examine themes that may seem obvious to modern readers. These experiences are likely to predict the path of Zhou's modern story in China, where the state of LGBT rights is similar to that of the U.S. several decades ago.

Abraham Lincoln in 1863
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Starting in the mid-aughts, some scholars began seriously considering the possibility that Lincoln's adult relationships extended well beyond Mary Todd Lincoln, his wife of 17 years. Psychologist and writer C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, published in 2005, shortly after Tripp's death, examined several seemingly queer aspects of Lincoln's life. The most notable included a poem Lincoln wrote that described a same-sex marriage; his recorded history of sharing a bed with other men, a practice not unheard of in his time; and his relationship with two men, his roommate and bedmate of four years, Joshua Speed, and his bodyguard David Derickson, the latter of which inspired contemporary rumors. (Before their impending marriages, Lincoln and Speed exchanged fraught letters exposing surprising anxieties about each one's own nuptials.) A great-great niece of William Herndon, Lincoln's longtime friend and eventual biographer, has also reported that her family has passed from generation to generation the story that Herndon and Lincoln were lovers.

A 2005 review of Tripp's work published in the New York Times accurately noted that modern notions of homosexuality don't apply to Lincoln's era. Other scholars were also quick to seize on that idea. Writing in Time magazine, essayist Joshua Wolf Shenk argued that "[r]ecent claims that Lincoln was gay -- based on a tortured misreading of conventional 19th century sleeping arrangements -- resemble the long-standing efforts to draft the famously nonsectarian man for one Christian denomination or another." Shenk railed against Tripp's "'epistemological hubris'" in assigning modern notions of sexuality to a time when "men could be openly affectionate with one another, physically and verbally, without having to stake their identity on it," and noted with seeming derision that Tripp's newfangled electronic search of Lincoln's records "yielded the delicious bit that Lincoln's New Salem, Ill., friend William Greene considered his thighs 'as perfect as a human being's could be.'"

Shenk was hardly alone in his views; much of the mainstream has viewed Tripp's take on Lincoln as ahistorical, suspicious and, apparently, immature. This is hardly a surprise; any time a gay historian claims a kinship with a historical figure, he or she is accused of inventing the connection in order to manufacture an affinity with that figure. Straight historians seem oblivious to the idea that this criticism could apply equally to them when they assume, without any supporting evidence, that a given historical figure was heterosexual.

Straight historians also seem to believe that if a comfortingly de-sexualized explanation for a historical fact exists, it necessarily negates the sexual possibilities. Take the example of Lincoln's practice of sharing a bed with another man, known as co-sleeping. While the practice may not be inherently gay, it's a necessary prerequisite for an awful lot of gay acts, knowledge of which is reflected in old, homophobic criminal laws. But Shenk argued that co-sleeping was merely akin to the modern sharing of houses and apartments by men, apparently oblivious to the fact that that's exactly what many gay couples do nowadays. (Do one hundred percent straight friends really sign letters to each other with the tagline "Yours forever," as Lincoln and Speed did?)

James Buchanan some time between 1850 and 1870
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Buchanan should be an easier case, both because he was more obviously queer and is a less revered historical figure. But even he hasn't been allowed to simply be gay, and identity groups aren't exactly lining up to lay claim to the president who apparently approved of the Dred Scott debacle, described slavery in the territories in his inaugural address as "happily, a matter of but little practical importance" just before the South seceded, and went to war with Mormons in Utah. The only president to never marry, Buchanan was a lifelong bachelor who lived for 10 years with Democratic senator William Rufus King. Even at the time, others said they knew exactly what was going on: Andrew Jackson referred to Buchanan as "Aunt Nancy," while Alabamans called King "Aunt Fancy," and others considered King to be Buchanan's "better half" and "his wife." When King moved away to become an ambassador to France, Buchanan wrote that he was "now 'solitary and alone,' having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them."

Yet even with such seemingly overwhelming evidence of a male-male sexual and romantic relationship, there are still those who argue that labeling Buchanan as "gay" injects too much contemporary understanding into an alien historical context. A 2012 article in Time magazine noted that "[o]ther historians, however, believe that his relationship with King was in fact more complex than that, and that the book is far from closed on the matter of Buchanan's sexuality." One wonders what more Buchanan could have done to show that he was gay short of overtly committing the very acts that would have gotten him arrested in his time.

To be sure, the Zhou deniers in China will have not just mainstream culture on their side, but the force of a Communist Party unwilling to revisit a resolutely heteronormative founding narrative. The book, or its assertions on Zhou, will almost certainly be banned in the mainland, as Tsoi herself acknowledges. But observers rightly decrying the party-state's censorship should remember that much of the opposition Zhou, and Tsoi, are likely to face will parallel what Lincoln, Buchanan and their modern biographers have faced in the United States. Ostensibly straight mainstream historians will claim that Tsoi is a revisionist, that she is applying ahistorical labels, or even that she is sensationalizing normal, platonic male affection.

The arguments for Zhou's heterosexuality will be as biased as those for Lincoln's and Buchanan's -- and for that matter, other famous historical figures like William Shakespeare and Susan B. Anthony. Straight academics will insist with straight faces that by default all previous human beings conformed to a particular idea of sexuality, ignoring the natural (and statistically inevitable) human variation that has spread LGBT identity throughout the globe, and across generations. We are doing a disservice to our natural diversity when we insist that historical figures must be straight until conclusively proven otherwise, yet need no evidence to be presumed heterosexual. Whatever the evidence reveals in Zhou's case, these debates should help us explore both our past and our present understandings of sexual orientation, be they American or Chinese, gay or straight -- or anywhere else along the great spectrum of human identity.

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Scalia, the Constitutional Fool

N.B.: Mr. Justice Scalia is believed to be a member of Opus Dei.


http://www.advocate.com/religion/2016/1/06/supreme-court-justice-scalia-government-should-favor-religion

Supreme Court Justice Scalia Says America Can Be Christian Nation

BY BILL BROWNING | JANUARY 06 2016 9:43 AM EST

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is once again raising eyebrows, most recently by claiming the Constitution does not require the government to be neutral on religious matters. According to the Associated Press, Scalia also said that the United States has been blessed because we honor God.

Speaking at a Catholic high school in Louisiana, the conservative justice told attendees that there is "no place" in the constitution for the idea of seperation between church and state. He followed up by saying there was nothing wrong with the President or other government officials evoking God in speeches.

"To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from?" Scalia said. "To be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't favor religion over nonreligion?"

"God has been very good to us. That we won the revolution was extraordinary. The Battle of Midway was extraordinary. I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor. Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke his name we do him honor. In presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways," he said. "There is nothing wrong with that and do not let anybody tell you that there is anything wrong with that."

In November, Scalia compared LGBT people to child molesters in a statement in support of referendums determining civil rights. "What about child abusers? So should I on the Supreme Court say this is a deserving minority? Nobody loves them. … No, if you believe in democracy, you should put it to the people.”

The Supreme Court will hear arguments this year in a case challenging President Obama's health care program and whether or not it shields religious schools, charities and hospitals from being forced to provide contraceptives to female employees.

Read more of Scalia's greatest fits here.

# # #

Highlights from the Real History of U.S. Identity and Christianity

1787

Constitution of the United States, Article VI: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust in the United States.”

Constitution of the United States, Amendment I: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”


1790

George Washington letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island : “The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support … May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

BTW, according to MountVernon org, which maintains the George Washington digital library, this quote is spurious, i.e., Washington never said or wrote it:"It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible."


1797

Treat of Tripoli, ratified by the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President John Adams: “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility [sic], of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and, as the said States never have entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”


1802

Letter from President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in the state of Connecticut: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercisethereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.


1843

Letter from President John Tyler: “The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent — that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mohammedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma, if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political Institutions.”

More here: http://infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/myth.html

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