Monday, September 30

Like father like prodigal? - You may recall the minor stir in the press when it was revealed that John Walker Lindh's father Frank Lindh divorced his mother to live with a man. (Okay, in the gay press it was a major stir, but what isn't?) Now in a major biographical piece on the "American Taliban," Time magazine claims that young John has had his own flirtations with all-male loving. Speaking of Lindh's "host" in Pakistan, Time writes:
Hayat met Lindh and took him on a tour of various madrasahs, searching for the perfect one from Karachi in the south to Peshawar in the northwest. The young American rejected them all and preferred remaining at Hayat's side. He helped Hayat at his store, a prosperous business dealing in powdered milk. Hayat, who has a wife and four children, says he had sex with Lindh. "He was liking me very much. All the time he wants to be with me," says Hayat, who has a good though not colloquial command of English. "I was loving him. Because love begets love, you know."

Time notes that Lindh's lawyers deny that he engaged in homosexual relationships. (For the record, so does Hayat.) This allegation of a sexual relationship is an absolutely remarkable assertion considering the magazine barely comments on his father's own coming out and its possible effect on the young man. This, in an article entitled "The Making of John Walker Lindh." Whether John has, like Frank, had male sexual partners or not, somebody is dropping the ball over at Time Warner.