Does a person's sexual orientation matter when it comes to art, poetry, or even at all. A beautiful painting is just that, a beautiful painting, whether or not it is painted by a heterosexual or a homosexual. It has been assumed that Walt Whitman was homosexual based on the tone of his poetic writings. Frances Willard, a pioneer of women's rights and education, also came out as homosexual due to her long-term cohabiting relationships with women. Facts can be proven and textbooks should teach facts and let interpretations and opinions be discussed in class. Teaching openness, interpretation and forming an opinion is an important lesson for all to learn, but textbooks should only print facts. Walt Whitman wrote poetry with a tone of homosexuality, therefore supposedly homosexual. Whitman was born in 1819 in New York. He worked throughout his life in many different professions, gaining experiences along the way including: teacher, journalist, clerk, and nurse's aide during the Civil War. Whitman loved writing poetry and used his own money to publish an untitled book of twelve poems in 1855, later titled "Leaves of Grass." Throughout his life he continued to expand on this book by adding poems and revising them. The book “Leaves of Grass” was about nature, love, friendship and democracy. Whitman's poetic works, at the time, were described as obscene, due to the overt sexual tone of his poems. (Foundation 2014) The subject of Whitman's sexual orientation has been a topic of discussion among biographers for years. The problem with claiming that Walt Whitman was gay is that there is simply no real evidence. Adding opinion as fact to Whitman's poetry can have a terrible effect on his work. Whitman... middle of paper ... discussion. Discussions should be careful not to narrowly define and reduce the work of Whitman or Willard to a small area of ​​their lives. It is important to print in textbooks and teach facts, not opinions. Once opinions start to be printed in textbooks, the story begins to change. History must be remembered as it happened, not as we wished or thought it should have happened. By remembering history, we hope we can learn from our mistakes. It is not pleasant to read about certain things that happened in history; people can be terrible to each other. It should be shocking that the Holocaust happened and that it was all brutal. If it's not offensive, then we're supposed to repeat it. I hope that we, as people, can evolve and become better with time. Today we value life more than they have throughout history, at least I hope we do..