Legend has it that somewhere between 10 BCE and the year 0 CE, a child was born to a girl named Mary, the young wife of Joseph, a carpenter from Nazareth. Joseph, however, was not the sire of the boy whom the world would come to know as Jesus Christ. Paternity belonged to God, the creator of the universe.

Offspring of the mingling of gods and humans has a long history in pagan religion. Zeus, king of the Titan gods, was a well-known philanderer and his eye often wandered beyond the divine. He had several human lovers who bore him children or descendants who went on to win fame in the ancient world; Dionysus, the girly-boy god of wine, Heracles, aka Hercules, the world’s strongest man and Perseus, slayer of Medusa. Zeus’s brother, the sea-god Poseidon, seduced Aethra who bore Theseus. Theseus years later would travel to Crete to slay the deadly Minotaur, the scourge of the Athenians.

It was into this tradition of demi-gods, the children of god fathers and human mothers, that Jesus was born. He would go on to become even more famous than his pagan predecessors. While Jesus Christ may well be the most celebrated person/god in western civilization, very little is known of his life. It’s only the last few years of his short span on earth that are documented and at that, there are many unexplained gaps. Most of what we know of Jesus was not written until decades after his death, when diarists put on papyrus what had until then been oral account.

We know that Jesus was a Jewish preacher in and around Palestine and modern day Israel. We know that his unorthodox teachings and his overturning of the money tables in or around the Holy Temple angered the Jewish hierarchy, especially high priest Caiaphas whose authority under the Romans depended on keeping his fellow Jews in line. Caiaphas, like most collaborators before and since, was more concerned with his own standing than the well-being of his flock. Sensing a challenge from the popular Jesus, Caiaphas handed him over to the Romans, accusing him of the religious sin of heresy. The Romans, whose design with the Jews was to keep them from rebellion, went along with the complaint and accused him of the state crime of treason. Jesus was sentenced to the Roman’s favorite form of capital punishment, crucifixion. Though he was born, lived, and died as a Jew, Christ ended up the posthumous leader of one of the western world’s three largest monotheistic religions, called, appropriately enough, Christianity.

Since his death, much has been said and done in the name of Jesus Christ, a lot of which he would not have approved. While what is known of Jesus’ life has been studied and described in detail, not much has been said about his sexuality. I believe that there is a simple explanation for this. Jesus was gay.

Let me first say that by gay, I don’t mean happy or joyous. I am talking about gay as it has come to be applied to those of homosexual inclination. That no one chooses to talk about the sexuality of Jesus speaks much of his followers who introduced the notion of sin and shame to the basic human desire for sex. If Christ had been outed, the basis for the persecution of same-sex practitioners that obsesses so many Christians some two millennia after his death would have been invalidated.

Yet the signs are there. Jesus was born into a world dominated by the Romans.
The Romans inherited the stories, gods, and traditions of the Greeks whom they supplanted as rulers of the Greco-Roman world, and who lived among the Romans as teachers, philosophers, and storytellers. The Greeks not only tolerated same-sex acceptance, but they also fostered and enjoyed it. To this day, ‘Greek-style’ is synonymous with a homosexual act. The word lesbian comes from Lesbos, the island home of the Greek poet, Sappho, known for open pursuit of her female devotees.

It was a strange and fortunate irony for Christ that Christianity didn’t exist when he was alive. He was able to explore his sexual nature without fear of being hounded by Christians. Islam, with its fanatical intolerance of homosexuality, was six centuries into the future. Jesus lived in an accepting same-sex era. The climate would change after his death. Imagine being cited as justification for prejudice and hatred towards actions that he practiced freely in his own lifetime. Fortunately, he wasn’t around to see what others made of him.

Jesus, like Shakespeare, is better known to us for what he said than who he was. There is a void of information about Jesus the boy and young man. Some speculate that he lived in Nazareth in Galilee, others that he went to Egypt. For a man so acclaimed, it strikes me as queer that we don’t know more about young Jesus. Record keeping and literacy were limited two thousand years ago so it’s possible that nothing remarkable occurred in the early years and that his life went, as with most of his contemporaries, unnoted.

When Jesus appears as a public figure, we become aware of a few things. First, he is single. A single Jewish male in his late twenties would have been abnormal during that period. If Jesus were straight, it seems unlikely that he would have been a bachelor. Life expectancy was short and Jewish males were expected to marry young and propagate. That Jesus was hitting the singles bars looking to pick up women, a regular turn of the Common Era playboy, doesn’t seem to fit with the Jesus of scripture. The most obvious explanation is that Jesus was not attracted to members of the opposite sex. Being a famously honest fellow, he wasn’t about to wear a beard just to please his parents or get ahead in society.

Hard on his return to public life Jesus recruits a close following of male travelling companions, known to us as the twelve apostles. “Like Jesus, most of the apostles were from Galilee, the Hebrew word for “gaily.” When we know the translation, it becomes clear that the Sea of Galilee, the Sea of Gaily, was a homosexual hangout.

At least four of the apostles were described as fishermen. Simon, Andrew, James, and John plied their trade on the Sea of Galilee. Are we to meant take ‘fishermen’ literally? Are these fellow gays – “fishers of men?” Were Simon, Andrew, James, and John married? They were certainly of age. Yet if they were married, how is it that they just up and left their wives and families to follow Jesus? Wouldn’t their responsibilities as family providers prevent them from doing that? They could not just up and leave, nor would Jesus have asked them to. 

It is far more likely that the apostles, like Jesus, were gay. They were likely ordinary guys, if a little bent, who Jesus met in the shadows of the local synagogues. They got to talking about love and life and trying to make a difference. Jesus, the son of God, a man on a mission, convinced them to join his effort to make the world a better place, not just for gays, but for everyone. How could they resist?

For those who know where to look, the Bible offers more clues as to the sexuality of Jesus. The setting again is the Sea of Galilee. The apostles were crossing the sea by boat when they saw Jesus walking on the water towards them. This amazing deed would suggest that Jesus, assuming he was a normal-sized man, would have been very light on his feet. On the surface, the Bible is telling us that Jesus walked on water. The clear suggestion here is that he was ’light in the loafers.’ ‘Light in the loafers’ or ‘light on his toes’ is a stereotype long used to describe homosexual men.

Now we have the bachelor Jesus, his fishers of men in a boat ahead of him, and Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee. If this event had taken place on the Dead Sea with its high saline content, it might have been plausible. The fact that the gospels make a point of saying that it occurred on the freshwater Sea of Galilee, means that this is likely another metaphor for the same-sex nature Jesus, one that the nervous writers in this new, severe Christian era could neither truthfully deny nor proclaim openly.

Unlike other Jewish preachers of the time, Jesus was not concerned with dogma or liturgical tradition. For three years, he walked among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem talking of simple things; the challenges of everyday life, of love, forgiveness, and charity, of opening your heart to people who were different, to those who were not from the same tribe, to those who had other beliefs. 

Jesus was a live and let live kind of guy, a gentle man, the antitheses of his stern father, the insufferable prick of the Old Testament. It is not uncommon for a son to be so different from the father. If the father is a hard-liner, of which there can be no doubt with Senior, it is common that the son is much softer. So it seems with Jesus.

Jesus travelled extensively with an all-male entourage bringing his message to thousands. But the boys only club evolved when Jesus met Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene has historically been portrayed by Christian orthodoxy as a streetwalker whom Jesus saved from stoning. Given that women had few career opportunities in the day, housewife, nun, and comfort girl being the most common, one can hardly blame Mary for trying to survive. It is more likely that our knowledge of Mary Magdalene is shaped by the male dominated world in which she lived, a state that Christianity sought to maintain, not change, the same entitlement which blamed Eve for the banishment from the Garden, which saw, and sees, women as subservient to men. Describing Mary Magdalene as a whore who needed saving, is but a convenient sop to male supremacy.

After Jesus saved her from the mob, Mary Magdalene became his most loyal and courageous friend. She also became what is crudely known today as a “fag hag.” These are women who feel safer hanging around gay guys knowing will not be pressured for sex. Fag hags and gay men are often drawn to each other, both groups needing companions who will not mock them, who will not come on to them, who will accept them as they are. Hanging with Jesus, and his band of merry men, Mary Magdalene was given respite from the rapacious masses, and at the end, was there for Jesus when most were not.

A closer look at the apostles reveals more evidence of the same-sex proclivities of Jesus. The gospel of John refers to the ‘disciple that Jesus loved.’ The disciple that Jesus loved is believed by most scholars to be John, the somewhat feminine youth sitting next to Jesus in DaVinci’s rendering of ‘The Last Supper.’ This John is held by some to be the same John who later wrote the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John was the last of the four gospels that came to form the New Testament. There is considerable doubt whether it was written by John the Apostle. What seems of little doubt is that John the Apostle occupied a special place in the life of Jesus. No doubt Jesus loved all his disciples. But the gospel’s telling us that John was ‘the Beloved Disciple’ making him first among equals, certainly suggests that John was the lover of Jesus. There are many forms of love of course, but is it so hard to believe that Jesus loved the beautiful John in a sexual way, or that John fell in love with Jesus the man, not just Jesus the messenger?

Even though Jesus preached a message of love and forgiveness, there were many, then and now, who believed in neither. As the clamour for his head grew louder, Jesus sought refuge in the Garden of Gethsemane, making one last, passionate plea to his father. Clearly, he thought that there was more work to be done. He was not ready to die. Jesus says to Senior, “I know you’ve generally been a dick to the very people you created in your likeness, but why have you forsaken me, your only son?’ It’s a good question, and one not answered in the Bible.

Jesus, by all accounts, had been a good guy, one of whom his father should have been proud. He was a peaceful man in dangerous times. He had shown great empathy in curing the sick, comforted the afflicted, aiding the poor. He had been courageous and steadfast against the corrupt established order. He worked towards a new and gentler land. He had been everything that a son could be – except for one thing in his orthodox father’s eyes. Jesus was gay.

It’s important to remember that the gospels were not meant for posterity. When they were written, Christianity was in its infancy, a marginal religion, one cult among many. The writers of the gospels kept their notes more as diaries, as journals of their time. None could have imagined that what they wrote would form the basis of a global movement or be heard or read by millions over the next two millennia. There were other such accounts that were discarded by the editors. It wasn’t until the fourth century CE that the four gospels as we have them today were assembled to form a narrative. Over the next thousand some years, the gospels passed through the hands of church officials, censors who had vested interest in shaping the final version. Agreement on what would constitute the New Testament was not reached until the 16th century, some 1500 years after the death of Christ

While no two gospels of the New Testament are alike, they tend to commonality. Anything that did not agree with what became Christian dogma was omitted and, in most cases, destroyed. If Jesus were gay, those who had control of the documents had centuries to do a rewrite. But even the most determined of cleaners were not able to eliminate all the clues to the sexuality of Jesus.

‘Why have you forsaken me?’ was the plaintive plea of Jesus as death approached. Scholars since have attempted to put a spin on God’s silence. However, the fact that God the father’s response does not appear in the Bible does not mean that there was none. Though I can’t be sure of the exact words, based on my study of the indirect gay message in the Bible, here is what I believe to be the gist of God’s reaction.

‘Why have I forsaken you? I’ll tell you why. To begin, a little suffering never hurt anyone. It’s a big part of the cost of admission to my place. If some suffer more than others, well I didn’t promise fairness. And looking at what you’ve become, I know that you need to suffer. I sent you down to earth with advantages that no son could reasonably expect. You have great genes. Your mother was a virgin. You have powers that mortal men could only dream of. I surrounded you with beautiful women, any one of whom would have been honored to have married into our family. But no, you Jesus, progeny of the most formidable power ever, were attracted to men.

‘At first I went looking for Lucifer thinking he had to be behind this. I was furious and saw his hand in this job. But after time to reflect, I don’t think this deviance had anything to do with Satan. This was a lifestyle choice. You had always been a little swishy, but I thought it was just a phase. Be patient with him, I thought. But as usual my instincts were right. You’re a perverted faggot.

‘Now I lament my grandchildren not to be. Your selfish decision shames me. I can barely leave the throne room I am so embarrassed. All the angels are talking, not when I’m around of course, still I know what they’re saying, and I can’t blame them. You have made me look ridiculous. The son of God is a fairy. What in the name of me is wrong with you?

‘No Jesus, you brought this on yourself. Now you and all your pansy friends, what is you call them – disciples, a little pretentious don’t you think? Well, you will all be punished. None of you will live out a natural life, except that boyfriend of yours, John. I want him to miss you for a long time.

‘Jesus Christ look at me when I’m talking to you! I’m angry, but not without affinity. After the crucifixion, I’m bringing you back to heaven. We have leaders of the ex-gay movement. They will take you through conversion therapy and help you overcome this sickness. I don’t care if it takes a thousand years, two thousand years, whatever. When I am informed that you are healthy, I will send you back to earth with a chance to redeem yourself.

‘The thugs of that quisling Caiaphas come for you. Off you go to martyrdom. It’s a heavy cross but bear it like a man. This is a good chance to convince me that you can straighten yourself out. We’ll talk more when you get here.”

So it was that Jesus was apprehended, tried, and convicted of religious crimes by the Jewish authorities. He was then hustled off to appear in front of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Here in these final moments, we have one final scene that adds weight to the argument that Jesus was gay. As Pilate questions Jesus, ultimately acquiescing to the pressure of Caiaphas and sentencing him to death, the apostle Peter is accosted by someone in the crowd who accuses him of being a follower of Jesus. As the bible tells us, as the two were arguing as to whether Peter knew Jesus, Peter’s cock crowed, not once but three time. Anyone who saw Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy in ´The Last Station’ knows exactly what a crowing cock means. Under such unimaginable stress, that Peter, another favorite of Jesus, the rock upon whom Christ would build his church, would be so obviously aroused, strongly suggests that he held more than platonic feelings for his master.

Despite the evidence I have presented, I suspect that many are still not convinced that Jesus Christ, son of God, Lord and Saviour, sent down to earth to free us from sin, could himself be guilty of that most egregious of sins, homosexuality. Because I anticipated that not all would buy into my argument, I have saved the most compelling evidence to the last. Until now, you could accuse me of reading things into scripture that simply aren’t there. We could debate these points forever. That is why I close with irrefutable affirmation that Jesus was gay.

One of the most common and beloved Christian prayers is not to Christ himself, rather to his mother, Mary. The ‘Hail Mary’ is based on lines from the Gospel of Luke and is often assigned to Catholics as penance for their sins. It is also a prayer of first recourse in times of extreme emergency, such as when your team is losing with only a few minutes to go, or when your loudmouth colleague shows up with a new cellphone, all those critical times when rapid response divine intervention is required. Neither the importance of the Hail Mary, nor its everyday usage by millions of Christians can be disputed.

Yet within this very prayer, second only to the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ in prayer hierarchy, are contained the words that sustain my belief that Jesus was gay. ‘Holy Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed are thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.’

So, there it is, as it has been for hundreds of years, ‘the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.’ In one of the most celebrated, accepted, and repeated of all Christian prayers, Jesus, son of God, is called a “fruit.”  

I have heard many Christians predict what would become of persons attracted to others of the same sex when the good Lord is back among us. Suspending belief for a moment, and allowing such nonsense, if Jesus were to return, to the discomfiture of homophobes everywhere, his first stop might well be a sauna. After he is good and steamed, he might just take it in mind to get even with those hypocritical assholes who have been using his name, together with their collars, hats, and robes, as cover for intolerance and hatred.

Blasphemy you say. Hey, it’s been a blasphemy too.

Copyright Paul Heno October