There
was a minor kerfuffle in the media a few days ago when Luci Baines Johnson and
Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, daughters of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, told
Katie Couric that their father would support same-sex marriage rights if he
were alive today. It’s important to
remember that LBJ's daughters were stating contextually that if their father was
alive today he would favor gay rights – in other words, they believe he would
have evolved with the times. How, some
asked, could his daughters speak on his behalf when he’s been dead for 40
years? Johnson was the President who
used his considerable powers of persuasion – including invoking the memory of
his slain predecessor, arm twisting, intimidating, and even threatening
Congresspeople - to get the landmark
Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. Johnson
also knew he was potentially jeopardizing the Democratic Party’s decades long
position as America’s majority party, and commented to an aide “we’ve just lost
the South for a generation” after he signed the bill. LBJ was hardly free of prejudice himself, but
as he himself stated, racism was a “crippling legacy” that would hamper
America’s greatness in the long term.
Johnson’s work for Civil Rights was an admirable stand on principle
which has unfortunately been overshadowed by his decisions in Vietnam.
All
Presidents - indeed, all human beings - are products of their generation.
Likewise, those who lead people are often willing to overlook inconvenient
facts in order to achieve their overarching goals. This is as true with the issue of sexual
orientation as elsewhere. Benjamin
Franklin alluded to rumors about Baron von Steuben’s private life being the
cause of his fleeing Germany, but that didn’t stop General George Washington
from hiring von Steuben to train the Continental Army into a fighting force
that could defeat the British. And
nobody raised a ruckus when Steuben was accompanied by a young man who was
generally assumed to be his lover.
Let’s
review the actions of our modern Presidents with regard to the issue of
homosexuality – and engage in informed speculation as to how they would
approach the LGBT issues today.
Back
to LBJ: Walter Jenkins was a top aide to him from 1939 until 1964. Just weeks before the 1964 election, Jenkins
– who was married – was arrested for public sexual conduct with another man in
a Washingon, DC, YMCA men’s room. As the
press got wind of the incident, they dug deeper and learned it wasn’t the first
time Jenkins had been busted on such a charge.
It seems highly unlikely Johnson – who maintained close ties with J.
Edgar Hoover (another closeted homosexual) – was not aware of the earlier arrest. Yet he later stated "I couldn't
have been more shocked about Walter Jenkins if I'd heard that Lady Bird had
tried to kill the Pope." As the story went public, Johnson was forced to
accept Jenkins’s resignation. But after
he left the Presidency, Jenkins was a welcome guest in the Johnson house for
the rest of his life.
This
campaign button is an example of how desperate the Republicans were in 1964.
Similar to LBJ,
Franklin Roosevelt tried to suppress knowledge of an incident in which his
assistant Secretary of State, Sumner Welles, made a pass at an African-American
male porter while on route to Speaker of the House William Bankhead’s funeral
in 1940. The story simmered until 1943 when Welles rival in the State Department,
William Bullitt, passed the information to a Republican Senator – forcing FDR
to let Welles go. When FDR learned that Bullitt was the source of the leak, he
fired him and told Bullitt he should "go to Hell" for trying destroy
an able man who made an error in judgment.
Sumner
Welles with FDR.
The
same can be said, based on contextual evidence, for Truman (who knew about J.
Edgar Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson and didn't care), Ike (who had
several lesbian assistants during WWII), and JFK (whose best friend, Lem
Billings, was gay).
Jerry
Ford endorsed same sex marriage rights shortly before he died, hardly
surprising since a gay man, Oliver Sipple, saved President Ford from an
assassination attempt in 1975. And we know Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are
for gay rights, despite having grown up in the old South.
Even
the elder George Bush has shown more comfort with LGBTs recently, attending a
same-sex wedding.
That
leaves Nixon, Reagan, and the young Bush as the odd men out. It’s not hard to infer that LBJ’s daughters
are right: Those with an open mind are increasingly supporting marriage
equality and LGBT rights in general.
There’s no logical reason to suspect their father would have been an
exception.
