aubrey is not considered the the litmus test of accuracy but his comments are consistently quoted by biographers as accumulative supporting evidence as it is assumed he had access to primary sources that have since disappeared and or people who knew the people he wrote of as with the majority of historical figures there is no direct evidence but the supporting evidence is significant and would certainly be considered enough to accuse someone of heterosexuality in on friendship and on beauty bacon addresses male love or 'masculine love' as he significantly terms it in new atlantis male love can obviously be platonic but the term was also employed by the earliest writers who self identified as what we now term homosexual so it adds to the supporting evidence some of the referenced sources offer a deeper discussion of the context of bacon's use of term and elizabethan homosocial writing it was i who originally referenced mathews in the article as a scholarly source for the opinion that bacon wasn't homosexual in your change you retained mathews but deleted the other references i also supplied that show the spectrum of scholarly opinion how true to type i don't debate with sneaks let alone bigots so this is the only reply i'm going to offer you but i do pity your patients