The matter of whether Abraham Lincoln had relationships with other men has been talked about for a while in the LGBTQ community, but Shaun Peterson’s new film, “Lover of Men: A History of Abraham Lincoln,” wants to dive a bit deeper. The director also wants to examine a bigger issue: sexual fluidity and how it has changed over time.
Peterson read about the possibility of Lincoln’s sexuality in a book now out of print called, “The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln,” by Clarence Tripp, one of Alfred Kinsey’s sex researchers. Tripp, a gay man, wanted to take historical evidence that had been studied by Lincoln scholars who were predominantly white heterosexual men and look at it through a different lens and experiences.
“It really ruffled some feathers and that was back in 2005,” Peterson told Georgia Voice. “I read it in 2006 and had been trying to pitch some variation of the project for a long time. It wasn’t until last year that we got it off the ground.”
Getting the documentary out into the world has been a wild ride. The team knew that this would be a charged topic and that people would respond to it, but it was important to make this more than a surface-level exploration.
“I want to get some of the finer points of the film out there,” Peterson said. “You see a headline [saying], ‘Was Abraham Lincoln gay?’ and we go to great lengths to talk about the history of the binaries, the history of what it is to have sexual identity, which is a very new concept. If we were to go in a time machine and ask Abraham Lincoln, ‘Are you gay or do you have an identity or identify with a specific type of sexual preference?’ he probably would not understand what we were even saying. It’s a completely new idea that didn’t come in until after his time, popularized in the 20th century. I like being able to get into those topics.”
The director has lined up an impressive array of interviews with scholars in the film. He reached out to many of them who had public email addresses and they were excited about the project. According to Peterson, they want this topic out there and discussed.
“They were very generous, and this is a lot of people’s life work,” he said. “A lot of professors realize that this has been discussed in academic circles or books, but it still didn’t hit the mainstream.”
Recently, Peterson was on an NPR show debating a Lincoln scholar who is very much against the theory that the former president was gay.
“I was saying basically that this film is not about Lincoln, but about sexuality and that is not your area of expertise,” he said. “We’re not saying he did not have sex with women. He clearly got married to a woman, but that doesn’t eliminate from having sex with men … Herman Melville, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron, Ralph Emerson were all married and had children — that is what happened back then. You got married but were fluid and had sex with men. We are not saying Lincoln was this outlier, but it was common practice back then.”
Peterson feels the fact that the theory hasn’t reached the mainstream is based in homophobia.
“One of our scholars in the film — a straight man from Harvard — has said that famous Lincoln scholars have said to him, ‘If I lose my faith in Lincoln, I lose my faith in the nation.’ What that person is saying is that if I lose my faith that Lincoln was a heterosexual manly man, I can’t have faith in America. I can’t think of him as a gay man because then the country falls apart for me. To these people, America is a heterosexual, heteronormative, gender-specific binary world, and this idea is breaking all that apart.”
Larry Owens is in the Emmy Award-winning series, “Abbott Elementary,” as Zach, the ex-boyfriend of Jacob (Chris Perfetti). Early in his career, Owens saw Perfetti onstage and his performance resonated deeply.
“Going to set, I got to tell one of my favorite actors that they did a formative performance — and I also had to be a professional and act,” Owens told Georgia Voice.
Owens is learning about the relationship between the two men alongside the audience. The breakup was a surprise to him as well, but he gives full credit to the writers for their nuanced and thoughtful job in fleshing out the characters, who are still at an age where they are figuring things out. He’ll find out Zach’s future sometime soon.
“I work for Quinta Brunson, so whenever I know — I will know,” he said with a laugh.
In the interim, he’s happy to see a gay couple on prime-time television.
“It builds something that I wanted to see as a kid,” Owens said. “There was no actor I could point to and say, ‘I want to do exactly that.’ Even as a guest star on ‘Abbott Elementary,’ I feel there is a tremendous dignity to the role. I feel there is nuance. I am excited to go to work on a set that is diverse in many capacities.”
In 2023, Owens made his directorial debut in season three of the Indeed Rising Voices program, which has provided Black, Indigenous, and people of color filmmakers opportunities to tell their stories and make noise in the industry. His film is “The Gag,” starring Sherie Rene Scott. He’s also been able to direct on “Abbott Elementary” and called being able to do that a “gift.”
“Lover of Men: A History of Abraham Lincoln” is now streaming
“Abbott Elementary” airs Wednesdays at 9:30pm on ABC and also streams on ABC.com and Hulu