Lincoln Lover

Did You Know?

• Stan's play Lincoln Lover was based on notes from Captain David Derickson, Lincoln's most trusted guard.
• The musical number that won Stan over is called "We're Red and We're Gay."

Plot

Stan’s local Conservative Republican chapter passed him over as a speaker for the Republican National Convention. After seeing a pretentious surrealist play about Abraham Lincoln, he decided to write and perform his own one-man show about the first Republican president, aiming to restore the party’s original values. His play, titled Lincoln Lover, focused on an unusually close bond between Lincoln and his most trusted guard, Captain David Derickson. The show became a huge hit, drawing large crowds of gay men, though Stan—who based the play on Derickson’s notes—seemed unaware of any homosexual subtext. The Log Cabin Republicans invited him to speak at the convention, but Stan only realized the group’s members were gay during one of their parties. He was won over by a musical number called “We’re Red and We’re Gay” and started acting more like a stereotypical gay man. Greg, a gay man living across the street from Stan, belonged to the Log Cabin Republicans. His partner Terry, a Democrat, did not, and this led to their breakup. Steve, who had been heavily indoctrinated by Stan to believe all gay people were evil, tried to rescue Stan by revealing to the Log Cabin Republicans that Stan had previously funded and participated in the “7th Annual Anti-Gay Palooza” alongside Pat Robertson. As a result, Stan was uninvited from a Log Cabin cruise and barred from speaking on their behalf at the RNC, since he was now seen as homophobic. To prove he was one of them, Stan decided to sleep with a man. He went on a date with Terry, who was angry at Greg and had declared “open season,” but when they reached the bedroom, Stan couldn’t become aroused. Terry told him that homosexuality is not a choice, contrary to what Stan believed. At the RNC, the Conservative Republicans’ scheduled speaker was removed because her second car was a Toyota Prius, so Stan took the podium. When he saw Log Cabin members being denied entry, he surprised the convention by stating in his speech that gay people are not gay by choice, but they are Republicans by choice, and urged all Republicans to redirect their hatred from gays toward Democrats, who choose to be Democrats. Afterward, the Conservative Republicans accepted the Log Cabin Republicans.

Reception

The episode was nominated for Outstanding Individual Episode by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation at the 18th GLAAD Media Awards. The award is meant to recognize and honor various branches of the media for their outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and issues. The episode was watched by a total of 7.71 million people; this made it the third most-watched show on Animation Domination that night, losing to Family Guy and The Simpsons, which had 10.46 million viewers.