Derb – You’ll get enough contention on your other points. But I would like to disagree on one statement. You write:

I will defer to Rick Brookhiser on all points of history here. I would like to say, however, that this business of “recruiting” historical figures to one’s pet cause is deplorable. It was pioneered by the homosexualists, who wrote numberless tomes to convince us that everyone of consequence in history, from Julius Caesar to Abraham Lincoln, was “gay.” It’s silly stuff, and I am sorry to see Christians engaging in it.

I more or less agree with all of this except for the word “pioneered” (and I think deplorability is in the details). “Pioneered” suggests that they were the first to do it. Without getting to deep into the weeds, this seems to be an older practice than that. Gay groups behave like typical identity politics culture warriors, in this regard. And haven’t ethnicities been claiming historical figures for their teams since the beginning of time? (Think Checkov in Star Trek claiming every inventor was a Russian). The Nazis claimed Jesus was an “Aryan.” The socialists (or many of them) claimed Jesus was the “first socialist.” The Progressive eugenicists claimed Jesus was the “first eugenicist.” Some Afrocentrists claim the Egyptians and even the Greeks were black. Feminists have a more difficult time claiming that famous men were women, but I bet if looked long enough I could find examples. And, in fairness, conservatives very often try to claim various historical figures as “conservatives” even though the historical contexts are highly inconvenient. It seems perfectly defensible to criticize the attempt to make historical figures gay if it’s done in bad faith, but I don’t think gays — or “homosexualists” — can be blamed for inventing the practice. Indeed, long before gays were claiming Lincoln, I’m sure that Christians were claiming founding fathers.