Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00200)

At 03:04 PM 4/10/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Boy, Alexis,
>
>You know all the details about everybody's sex life. I knew Leonard
>Bernstein was gay, or bisexual, he had a wife, but I didn't know it about
>Aaron Copland. What kind of revolutionary sex life did Wagner have? I
>wouldn't put it past him to have done it standing on his head.
>
>Liesel
>Member TI, TSA, TS in Canada, HR
>............................................................................
>
>Liesel:

I knew both Leonard and his wife Felicia (Warburg). Like so many Gay Men of
Jewish antecedants Lenny, who was always a Gay man, had to marry to meet his
family's expectations of him. Also when he was a young man, even a hint of
his real nature could have destroyed his career. It's amazing how many major
American composers of the 20th Century were Gay men. Virgil Thompson,
Benjamin Britten, Lou Harrison. John Cage and many more. The Gay community
tends to keep up with these things not becuase they are at all interested in
people's sex life but because these men, and so many other men and women
like them are our validation of usefulness to society. They are our virtual
banners to fly proudly. Being a member of the Gay and Lesbian Minority is
not like being Jewish or Black, while people may be racists or anti-semites,
they do not call either blacks or jews perverted for what they are, nor are
other minorities so discriminated against in basic human rights. It's
difficult to get over the pariah status and "famous Gays" are a big help in
so doing.

As to Wagner, it's extremely common knowledge that he stole Hans von Bulow's
wife Cosima Liszt von Bulow. It's also common knowledge that he was the kind
of man whose ego was gratified by afffairs with forbidden objects. He, like
his Father-in-Law Franz Liszt was clearly a heterosexual.
>
alexis>
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