‘Was Jesus queer?’ Peter Tatchell says he could have been

‘Was Jesus queer?’ Peter Tatchell says he could have been

The rights campaigner asks why Christians presume that Jesus was heterosexual

20 June 2015 | By Jack Flanagan
Peter Tatchell

In a short blog post for his website, rights campaigner Peter Tatchell says: ‘The truth is that we simply don't know whether Jesus was straight, gay, bisexual or celibate.’

He begins by quoting St. Mark’s gospel, in which an erotic figure called the ‘naked youth’ is brought back from the dead by Jesus.

‘Going out of the tomb, [Jesus] went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus instructed him and, at evening, the youth came to him wearing a linen cloth over his naked body.

‘And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God.’

The excerpt, Tatchell believes, suggests the two had sex.

There has been much academic work surrounding Jesus’ sexuality: whether he was celibate, had a wife, lover, or was gay. The Bible, considered the only source of evidence of who Jesus was, is never explicit on his sexuality.

Tatchell admits the nature of Jesus’ sexuality is never obvious in the Bible, but this means he cannot be assumed to straight.

The Mark story he quotes offers an interpretation of Jesus as homosexual.

‘This absence of firm information does not, of course, mean that we can take it for granted that Christ was heterosexual. Far from it!’ he says.

‘There is certainly no evidence for the Church's unspoken presumption that he was either heterosexual or devoid of carnal desires.’

Tatchell then aligns his theological argument with a political one: ‘In the absence of any evidence - let alone proof - that Jesus was heterosexual, the theological basis of Church homophobia is all the more shaky and indefensible.

‘How can established religion dare denounce homosexuality when the founder of its faith was himself a man of mysterious, unknown sexuality who could, for all we know, have been homosexual?’

The blog post finishes on the vivid image of Jesus experiencing a typical ‘male sexual feeling’: ‘The Bible tells us that Jesus was born a man and therefore presumably had male sexual feelings.

‘It would have been more or less impossible, biologically, for him not to have an element of erotic arousal - even if only having the normal male response of waking with an erection.’

- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/%E2%80%98was-jesus-queer%E2%80%99-peter-tatchell-says-he-could-have-been200615#sthash.o6u5Qq9P.dpuf