"Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama" reveals how young Barack was captivated by Professor Lawrence Goldyn while attending Occidental College in 1980. David J. Garrow , a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, talked to old friends who recalled how Obama was smitten with the older man.

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Garrow writes: "Obama wrote somewhat elusively to his first intimate girlfriend that he had thought about and considered gayness" — but decided "a same-sex relationship would be less challenging and demanding than developing one with the opposite sex." He still never forgotten Goldyn. Nearly 20 years after attending Occidental, Barack recalled: "My favorite professor my first year in college was one of the first openly gay people that I knew!"