Barney Frank
David Taffet | Senior staff writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
Without Baron von Steuben, George Washington thought he would not have won the Revolutionary War. Washington hired the Prussian to turn a ragtag band of men into elite soldiers. Von Steuben was known for his bravery and discipline. And he served under Washington as an openly gay man.
Ben Franklin recommended von Steuben to Washington despite the Prussian’s discharge from the army for homosexuality. Von Steuben tried unsuccessfully to find another military position in Europe. Franklin knew of the rumors of von Steuben’s sexuality but didn’t think his private life was relevant to his military qualifications.
Neither did Washington who credits the gay man with turning Washington’s army into an effective fighting force.
This week, we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and our country’s semiquincentennial. To celebrate, we thought we’d mention a few of the queer people who helped shape our country.
Since von Steuben’s time, gays have continued to serve in the armed forces throughout U.S. history despite being officially banned from doing so. Leonard Matlovich came out to his commanding officer in 1975 and was given an honorable discharge. He challenged his dismissal from the Air Force and a judge ruled in his favor in 1980.
Matlovich died of AIDS in 1988. On his tombstone is written, “When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”
William Rufus King served as 13th vice president of the United States under Franklin Pierce, the 14th president of the United States, from March 4, 1853 until his death less than two months later. Previously, he had been elected one of the first two senators from Alabama after that state was admitted to the union in 1819.
But he is best remembered as President James Buchanan’s partner, with whom he lived from 1840 until his death in 1853. Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, is remembered both as the worst president in American history and as America’s first gay president.
Because he wasn’t married, Buchanan’s niece served as White House hostess and first lady. After his death, she burned his papers, presumably to protect him and the family from scandal.
So all we have are references from others in Washington to prove his sexual orientation. One congressman referred to King as Buchanan’s better half and former President Andrew Jackson called the couple Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy.
Gay rumors surround Abraham Lincoln, who followed Buchanan in the White House. Mary and Abe had separate bedrooms, but this was common custom for presidents until Jimmy and Roslyn Carter insisted on sleeping together in the 1970s.
But Lincoln was known for having some White House guests spend the night in his room.
The next White House connection to the LGBTQ+ community was first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She had a close relationship with a relatively out Associated Press reporter, Lorena Hickok. After her husband’s death, Eleanor moved back to Hyde Park, N.Y. and lived in a house on the family estate with a lesbian couple, Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, while remaining close to Hickok.
More recently, gay men have been part of presidential cabinets. Pete Buttigieg served as Joe Biden’s Secretary of Transportation and Scott Bessent serves as Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary.
Currently, 13 out members of Congress serve — one senator: Tammye Baldwin and 12 representatives including Dallas’ own Julie Johnson and Sarah McBride from Delaware, the first out transgender member.
Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, first elected to Congress in 1980, became the first member of Congress to come out voluntarily when he did so in 1987. He was re-elected through 2013 when he retired.
There are three openly gay and lesbian governors serving: Jared Polis of Colorado, Maura Healey of Massachusetts and Tina Kotek of Oregon.
And all of these recently-elected LGBTQ+ officials would give a nod to Harvey Milk, who moved to San Francisco from Dallas — which he hated — to open a camera store in the Castro. After losing a race for city supervisor in 1973 and then for state Assembly, he was elected city supervisor in 1977.
In office less than a year when he was assassinated by a former city supervisor, he’s remembered as one the first out people elected to public office and for passing a comprehensive nondiscrimination bill that became a model for ordinances proposed around the country.
The struggle for LGBTQ+ rights owes a debt of gratitude to the Civil Rights movement. It’s where we learned strategy and tactics. And who was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s assistant and primary planner of the 1963 March on Washington — Bayard Rustin, a gay man.
In an interview with the Washington Blade in the 1980s, Rustin told the Blade reporter why it was important to come out. He told this story of riding in the rear of the bus:
“As I was going by the second seat to go to the rear, a white child reached out for the ring necktie I was wearing and pulled it, whereupon its mother said, ‘Don’t touch a n____r.’
“If I go and sit quietly at the back of that bus now, that child, who was so innocent of race relations that it was going to play with me, will have seen so many blacks go in the back and sit down quietly that it’s going to end up saying, ‘They like it back there, I’ve never seen anybody protest against it.’
“I owe it to that child, not only to my own dignity, I owe it to that child, that it should be educated to know that blacks do not want to sit in the back, and therefore I should get arrested, letting all these white people in the bus know that I do not accept that.
“It occurred to me shortly after that, that it was an absolute necessity for me to declare homosexuality because if I didn’t I was a part of the prejudice. I was aiding and abetting the prejudice that was a part of the effort to destroy me.”