Shoghi Effendi, First Guardian of the Baha\'i Faith, was Likely a Tormented Closeted Homosexual

By: Michael Zargarov

Greetings all.

About 20 years ago I was introduced to Mildred Mottahedeh at a conference in Arizona. Hand of the Cause Bill Sears introduced us because he knew I yearned to teach the faith in Eastern Europe, and he knew that Mildred had a particular interest there too. Later in 1990, at her suggestion, I pioneered to Prague, Czechoslovakia. I was there 18 months, and traveled from Prague to Russia, and to Alma Ata, Kazakhstan in order to visit with and help teach among long-out-of-contact believers. Still later, at various times, I was hosted for dinner at Mildred\'s sumptuous apartment overlooking the United Nations complex in NYC. Once in late 1992 I took Mildred to a concert of Beethoven\'s 9th Symphony at the Lincoln Center. On the way we stopped at a drugstore. When she came back to the car, Mildred showed me a gold locket which held hair from Baha\'u\'llah. She told me that Shoghi had given it to her when she WITNESSED his marriage to Ruhiyyih. Mildred and her husband bought a limousine for Shoghi to use, which he later loaned to Ben Gurion when \"Israel\" was established.

Mildred Mottahedeh had known May Maxwell [Shoghi Effendi\'s wife, known as Ruhiyyih Khanum] since the 1920s. They were close confidants and best friends. Before Violette Nakhjavani took over as \"companion\" to Ruhiyyih, Mildred held that honor.

Mildred and I were very close. She ASKED me if I \"struggled with being gay\". When I admitted that I did, she revealed to me that Ruhiyyih had intimated to her that Shoghi was homosexual himself, and hated himself because he \"fell so short of what was expected of him as a member of Baha\'u\'llah\' s family\". Ruhiyyih told Mildred that their marriage had been arranged to \"help\" Shoghi \"straighten himself out\". (It is purely MY conjecture that Ruhiyyih was Lesbian. I just saw such a Bull-Dyke everytime I saw her, and her relationship with Violette seemed obvious.) Mildred told me that she had revealed that long-held secret because she hoped it would one day help other gay Baha\'is to realize that they were not struggling alone; indeed that the \"Center of the faith\" had struggled against the same \"affliction\". Mildred made me swear NEVER to reveal what I knew until AFTER her death. I kept the promise.

Source :

http://blog.lotusopening.com/2010/01/shoghi-effendi-first-guardian-of-bahai.html