Free Republic

Former President Barack Obama considered being homosexual as a young man, according to a forthcoming biography of the president. The biography by David Garrow, “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama,” is set to come out on May 9. Garrow wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr., and is a regular contributor to The New York Times and The Washington Post. In a chapter about the former president’s two years at Occidental College, Garrow reveals a close relationship Obama had with an openly gay assistant professor named Lawrence Goldyn. “Goldyn made a huge impact on Barry Obama,”...

As an 18-year-old undergraduate student at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Barack Obama was among a coterie of students who spoke regularly with Lawrence Goldyn. Goldyn, an openly gay political science professor who served as a mentor and friend to many of the school’s minority students, said Obama joined him and other students in discussions about social and political issues at a time when Obama was beginning to develop an interest in politics and civil rights causes. “He was one of those usual, straight young men who was secure enough in his sexuality that he was not fearful of being...