Jesus was gay?

I can’t believe I missed this article published by The Guardian after Easter weekend. It’s written by Anglican priest Paul Oestreicher, who on Good Friday talked to his church about the possibility that Jesus Christ was gay. He claims the evidence is in the last words of Jesus said to his mother, Mary, and disciple John: “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”

Oestreicher goes on to say:

That disciple was John whom Jesus, the gospels affirm, loved in a special way. All the other disciples had fled in fear. Three women but only one man had the courage to go with Jesus to his execution. That man clearly had a unique place in the affection of Jesus. In all classic depictions of the Last Supper, a favourite subject of Christian art, John is next to Jesus, very often his head resting on Jesus’s breast. Dying, Jesus asks John to look after his mother and asks his mother to accept John as her son. John takes Mary home. John becomes unmistakably part of Jesus’s family.

Jesus was a Hebrew rabbi. Unusually, he was unmarried. The idea that he had a romantic relationship with Mary Magdalene is the stuff of fiction, based on no biblical evidence. The evidence, on the other hand, that he may have been what we today call gay is very strong.

I think the idea of Jesus being gay is a beautiful interpretation. I’m actually giddy at the thought because Jesus was the first guy I had a crush on as a kid (I was into BDSM from a young age). But all kidding aside, it’s obvious that the love Jesus felt for John was stronger than any other love he knew — and regardless of whether or not that love was sexual, it is an important example of same-sex devotion.