7 Gay Presidential Rumors You Won’t Believe (But Maybe Should)

Which president's best friend wrote, "his thighs were as perfect as a human being could be"?

From: NEWNOWNEXT

 It’s President’s Day, when we salute George Washington (who was actually born on February 22) and all our Commanders in Chief.

While we’ve never had an out president (yet), gay people have been a part of presidential history since the beginning. In fact, a gay man once saved the president’s life.

 On September 22, 1975, Sarah Jane Moore pulled a gun on President Gerald Ford as he was leaving San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel. Fortunately, Oliver Sipple, a gay man and a decorated Marine who served in Vietnam, was there to grab Moore’s hand as she fired.

He ruined her shot and saved Ford from assassination, becoming a hero to the LGBT community..

“For once, we can show that gays can do heroic things,” said Harvey Milk, then running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

 Once, calling a president gay was muckraking. Now many in the LGBT community look to the unwritten history of our leaders for glimpses of ourselves.

Here we check out seven times the LGBT community intersected with the commander in chief.

 1

George Washington: Friend Of Friend Of Dorothy

George and Martha Washington never had children, and historians agree he was more interested in her money than her figure. But I couldn’t find any direct evidence Washington was gay.

According to historian Thomas Foster’s Sex and the Founding Fathers, though, reporters often attacked Freemasons like Washington, claiming they were “engaging in anal penetration with wooden spikes used in ship building.”

In any case, we do know a gay man was one of Washington’s closest allies.

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was a Prussian military officer who fled Europe to avoid prosecution for homosexuality—even Benjamin Franklin knew of von Steuben’s open secret.

But his expertise in training and tactics was more important to the Founding Fathers than who he slept with.

Von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge in February 1778 and quickly trained the men how to perform drills, stand at attention, wield a bayonet and quickly reload a musket, among other skills. With his expertise and discipline, von Steuben was integral in helping the Colonial Army defeat the British—and served as General Washington’s chief of staff in the final years of the war.

Washington’s last act as general was to write von Steuben a letter thanking him profusely for all he had done.