Obama's NOT the first 'gay President': Letter reveals lifelong bachelor James Buchanan's love for Alabama senator

It would seem that Newsweek’s latest cover showing President Obama with a rainbow halo declaring him ‘The First Gay President’ is not merely attention-grabbing but historically inaccurate too.

Critics and history buffs, quick to scorn the sensationalist cover, have pointed out that James Buchanan was likely the first homosexual President more than a century ago.

Rumours about Buchanan’s sexuality have circulated with historians determining that the fifteenth leader of the U.S was gay – and that the nation knew it.



Write caption here

‘There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was gay, before, during and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it, too — he was not far into the closet,’ historian Jim Loewen wrote on History News Network in response to the news magazine’s daring cover.

Loewen points to a letter that Buchanan wrote to Mrs Roosevelt on May 13, 1844.

In the missive Buchanan describes his loneliness after his great love, Alabama senator William Rufus King, moves to Paris to become the ambassador to France.

Buchanan wrote: ‘I am 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. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.’

Buchanan, who was in the White House from 1857 to 1861, was the only president who remained a life-long bachelor.



Before becoming president, Buchanan lived with King for 15 years in Washington DC. King served as Vice President under Franklin Pierce but died shortly after Pierce came into office - four years before Buchanan took over.



There is little correspondence between the two men for historians to pour over, as the men's nieces largely destroyed it.



Buchanan's niece, Harriet Lane, served as the Lady of the White House.

Attention grabbing: Critics have slammed the shock-factor Newsweek cover of Obama with a rainbow halo as a desperate bid to boost sales

Newsweek has been slammed for labelling the straight, married, father-of-two President simply to draw attention to itself and increase sales.

Tina Brown, who edits the magazine and its sister website The Daily Beast, is known for her love of controversial covers to help boost public interest and sales.

After Time magazine went with a cover shot of a young blonde mother breastfeeding her 3-year-old boy, Ms Brown is said to have taken it in stride, saying 'let the games begin!'

The article accompanying the cover was written by the news magazine's regular blogger, Andrew Sullivan, who is an openly gay self-titled conservative political pundit.



'When you step back a little and assess the record of Obama on gay rights, you see, in fact, that this was not an aberration. It was an inevitable culmination of three years of work,' Mr Sullivan said in a statement about the article.

'He had to discover his black identity and then reconcile it with his white family, just as gays discover their homosexual identity and then have to reconcile it with their heterosexual family,' he wrote, describing the similarities between Mr Obama and the gay community.

Historic: President Obama made his announcement in a taped interview with Good Morning America's Robin Roberts on Wednesday

Made up: Mr Biden (left) and Mr Obama (right), appearing at an event on Saturday, have since moved past Mr Biden's rushed statement in support of same-sex marriage

There was little doubt that Newsweek would be covering the President's historic announcement that he supports same-sex marriage after he had a sit-down television interview confirming what many already believed to be the case.



This was, however, the first time that a sitting President had done so, and the magazine asserts that such a move was a calculated one that had been thoroughly planned.

'It’s easy to write off President Obama’s announcement of his support for gay marriage as a political ploy during an election year. But don’t believe the cynics,' representatives from the news magazine told Politico in a statement about the article.



President Obama's announcement came several days after Vice President Joe Biden said that he was 'absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and men and women marrying are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.'



Making a splash: Newsweek's Tina Brown, left, and Andrew Sullivan, right, are not afraid to court controversy with the magazine's latest cover image

Gay marriage: Despite Mr Obama's support of the issue, there are no plans to legalise it in federal law

The move, thought to be a misstep as he made his opinion known before Mr Obama publicly declared his, was criticized by many within the administration and outside of the White House.



'Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way, in my own terms, without I think, there being a lot of notice to everybody? Sure,' Mr Obama said in the ABC interview. 'But all's well that ends well.'

On the day of the President's interview, Mr Biden is said to have had a private meeting in the Oval Office in which he apologised for his overstep.



Republicans, the majority of whom are against gay marriage, said that Mr Obama simply made his historic announcement in an effort to gain support among liberal voters in the lead up to the general election.



'While President Obama has played politics on this issue, the Republican Party and our presumptive nominee Mitt Romney have been clear,' Republican national committee chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement.



'We support maintaining marriage between one man and one woman and would oppose any attempts to change that.'

Mr Romney re-affirmed his opposition to gay marriage in a speech to graduates of evangelical Liberty University in Virginia last week.

He described marriage as an 'enduring institution' and said that it should be 'a relationship between one man and one woman'.

'I WASN'T SURE HIS VIEWS ON MARRIAGE COULD GET ANY GAYER': RAND PAUL MOCKS OBAMA'S LANDMARK GAY MARRIAGE ANNOUNCEMENT

Mocking: Rand Paul said President Obama's views on marriage 'couldn't get any gayer' while addressing a conservative audience in Iowa Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, son of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, on Friday mocked Barack Obama's recent statements on gay marriage.

Senator Paul was speaking at the 12th annual meeting of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a Christian conservative non-profit that opposes same-sex marriage, in Iowa.

'The president recently weighed in on marriage and you know he said his views were evolving on marriage,' Senator Paul said. 'Call me cynical, but I wasn’t sure his views on marriage could get any gayer.'

His comments came just two days after President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, which he had previously opposed.

Senator Paul's 'joke' received more than a few chuckles from his chosen audience so he continued on his course of blasting the president.

'He said the biblical golden rule caused him to be for gay marriage,' Paul said.

'I'm like, what version of the Bible is he reading?'

Senator Paul repeatedly used the word 'sin' in reference to the topic.

'We understand sin and we understand that people sin,' he said.

He argued that it one doesn't have to resort to 'hateful dogma' to preserve 'traditions.'

'Beyond religion, there's stability in the family unit,' he said. 'We shouldn't just give up on it.'

He used the opportunity to claim that the country was in the midst of a 'spiritual crisis' and that the nation required 'leaders beyond your political leaders'.