He and I used to walk around the Central West End together -- home to many gay bars -- talking. We'd sit down at a table for two at a pub and talk for hours. We embrace when we greet and depart from each other. Sometimes, when it felt appropriate, I'd tell him I care deeply for him. And I do love him dearly. He's a great friend.

Am I gay? Is he?

Uh... no. It's this strange, odd thing called a friendship.

And I have female friends I treat this way also, male/female friendships which have been utterly platonic as long as they have existed. (And I'm actually attracted to women.) If it's not unusual or unheard-of for a heterosexual man to have a female friend and not have sex with her, then why should we have trouble accepting the idea that male/male platonic friendships exist?

Yet it seems that mere evidence of a close male friend is enough for certain homoeroticizers to try to assert that some historical figure was certainly gay.

For example, we are told that Israel's King David and Jonathan were supposedly gay. Even though the same evidence shows David wrote things like "I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your law is written on my heart" where that law included clear prohibitions of male/male sexual relations, and instructions to stone those who had them.

And now Oliver Stone, betlittling Americans to the rest of the world (and where do some people get the odd idea the left is anti-American?) insists that his film is not a flop because it simply sucked big rotten tomatoes... No: ignorant, backwards American just couldn't handle the 'truth' that Alexander the Great might be gay.

Get real, Oliver. And don't flatter yourself so much. I didn't see your movie because (a) every review I read about it said, quite frankly, it stank (and don't tell me it's because reviewers like Ebert are moral prudes), and (b) I love history, and have come to realize your version is almost always in deep conflict with the evidence. (But what can we expect of a man who uses all of his powers of evidence-gathering, reason, and deduction to conclude that Fidel Castro is a wonderful fellow?)

As I said, I enjoy history, and a real lover of history would no sooner fill his head with a fraudulent version of it than a man who loves his wife would have affairs with many women who bear only a superficial resemblance to her. A person who loves the real thing will not be content with cheap imitations.

Instead, the reason for doing such things is that you don't love your wife, or you don't love history, and really want something else more in line with your tastes, preferences, or perceived emotional "needs" or sexual/political agenda. (But I repeat myself.)

Look, I'm not shocked at the idea an important historical figure might have been gay. A Greek one no less. Classical Greek men famously screwed everything in sight: men, women, children. If it moved, and was under the age of 30, there was some Greek guy wanting to have sex with it.

(This was a big factor in the degraded status of women and the perpetuation of slavery in Greek society. If you, a Greek man, screwed everyone but your wife, and fathered children who were abandoned to the elements or were taken to be raised as slaves -- perhaps even unknowingly becoming your own future sexual playthings! -- then writing off those damaged by your behavior, legally and spiritually as "less than human", is a typically human way of protecting yourself from the many negative effects of your promiscuity.)

The reason I think it's silly to assert Alexander the Great was homosexual is because there is simply no evidence to support such a contention. Given that (a) he came from a culture which saw no reason to hide homosexuality, (b) the same historicans who readily report his father was gay are say no such thing about him, and (c) the Greek language has a specific word for male/male 'romantic' friendships, and yet it is never attributed to Alexander.

Given especially (a) and (b), we have persuasive evidence Alexander was probably not gay. It would have been unusual to fail to include such a detail had it been present, since the same historians freely ascribed it to others.

Finally, I'm not sure what the point of all the "X was Gay!" lists on the Internet are. The argument seems to be that if famous people were gay, then homosexuality must be a good thing.

Of course gays contribute positive things to society. Some of my favorite musicians (Erasure, Pet Shop Boys) are gay or go both ways. But many important people were also pedophiles, adulterers, drug users, cruel, gluttonous etc. Orson Welles was a talented chef and ate a lot. He died from his habits. Does the fact that he was a brilliant movie producer and magician mean that we automatically need to accept his gastronomic habits as ideal or even neutral? It takes more than a mention of his name to answer that question. I admire and am grateful to Winston Churchill. But that doesn't mean I'm convinced drinking a lot is a really smart move either.

The other effect of such lists were that they turn history into mere propaganda.

For example, Hitler is not included on such lists. Why? Don't know, but he surrounded himself with gay men, called them "bubi", a pet name used between German gay lovers, and was on the Vienna police blotter as a known homosexual prostitute. Ah, but that's not enough evidence, apparently.

Then we decide Da Vinci, King David, or Alexander probably was gay. Why? I'll get to that at the end, but for the moment, suffice to note the historical evidence for Hitler's gayness, which is censored, far outweighs these cases, which are eagerly promoted.

Nor do "They were gay!" lists frequently include others who might be a negative example, such as Calligula, Caesar Tiberias, Nero, Ghengis Khan, Julius Caesar, Nazi brownshirt Ernst Roehm and much of the Nazi SA and SS.

So we're not interested, really, in learning anything from history. Instead, history is just a vehicle for our sexual/political agenda; facts must be made to fit instead of being accepted wherever they might fall. If a particular bit of evidence agrees with our politics, it's true, and highly important; if not, it's unimportant or even false or misleading. Political purpose determines truth, not vice-versa.

In other words, people are being taught not to think. Not good.

Last, there's this question of why such "Gay Historical Figures" lists seem to use the most inclusive standards possible. Often, the only evidence on offer for the "gayness" of certain characters is a close male friendship.

It seems likely to me that such lists are assembled by men who cannot conceive of caring about another man without also wanting to insert their penis into some part of his body. Undoubtedly, they are projecting their narrow, libido-driven understanding of relationships, and failure of imagination, upon their historical subjects. How sad.

Rest assured, there are those of us who have close, even intimate same-gender friendships, and yet still find the thought of physical relations repellent. And there are also those of us, believe it or not, who are capable of at least a modicum of self-control even with people to whom we are attracted.

Difficult thought that may be for some to imagine.

I suspect this arises from a conflation of lust and love. When we lust for someone, we do not necessarily love them. Wanting a physical relationship with someone is often far, far from acting upon a serious consideration for what is truly best for them in the long run. In fact, it's seldom the same thing, and thus lust usually dictates the exact opposite course of action that true love and concern would dictate.

Such lists are founded on the opposite view: That there can be no difference between love and lust, and genuine long-term concern and cannot exist without some sort of exchange of bodily fluids. And really, everyone is homosexual.

It's a shame that such a narrow view of human relationships has come to dominate the rhetoric of gay activism. And it's a shame so many are are apparently being influenced by such a debased view of human friendship.

But many apparently must view it that way, for to admit the opposite would be admit an alternative exists, and widen the debate to include human free will on the question of what we do in response to our many desires.