Lee Randall: Elton simply picked one of the good guys for his own team…

Published on Friday 19 February 2010 20:11

MY LATE, great, best friend had many eccentricities, among them the insistence that any man who was at all accomplished, adorable and generally worth paying attention to was obviously a member of his brethren – that is, gay.

He also insisted, right up until the day she died and was autopsied and the matter, along with her remains, was finally laid to rest, that Mae West was a man.

Giggle if you must, but this was a very popular urban myth. Some people ignorantly refuse to accept that a woman can be talented, sexually predatory, pro-gay rights (her play about homosexuality was banned in New York in 1927) and decked out like a drag queen if he/she/it isn't actually a drag queen.

So when Sir Elton John (from here on in, referred to as SEJ) came out this week in an interview with America's Parade magazine, saying he believed Jesus was gay, I giggled. "Are the boys still up to that kind of foolishness," I thought, as a sharp pang of nostalgia tore through me.

Speaking of things foolish, someone's coined the word "fooligan", which is breathtakingly self-explanatory and quite possibly my new favourite phrase, though it's got stiff competition from "toastation", used by a barista to describe what had to happen to a panini I'd been ogling before I could take it away as lunch.

At this writing, the full transcript of the SEJ interview has yet to be posted online. So I lack the wider context for his saying: "I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East – you're as good as dead."

The New York Daily News reported on this PR stunt – by which I mean leaking all the best quotes to boost magazine sales on the day, and then when you get the thing you find out the rest of the article's pure filler – in their most bemused tones.

They pointed out that four years ago SEJ said he was no fan of organised religion, because it "promotes hatred and spite against gays. From my point of view I would ban religion completely".

Is there any practical requirement to pinpoint whether or not Jesus was gay, or, as Dan Brown and others would have it, whether he was straight and married to Mary Magdalene, or whether he experienced sex at all? I'm still not convinced he was an actual historical figure. If it turns out that he was, I'd bet you any amount of money he'd struggle to recognise most of the trappings and tenets of the religion founded in his name.

SEJ displays a good grasp of the basics. I share his discomfort with religion but agree it's got its good points, such as those ideas about love and forgiveness, which are sound. I'm fond of the sensible maxim exhorting us to treat others as we wish to be treated.

If this quote reflects SEJ's view of Jesus, why wouldn't he want him on the team? I've said before, I applaud when people of achievement come out, because kids need role models – especially kids struggling with their sexuality. Have you seen the suicide statistics?

If kids (and their parents) realise that much-admired celebrities, athletes, scientists, philosophers, and so on, are gay, they'll learn that they're not alone, and that sexuality is no big deal.

Gossiping about who's doing who is admittedly great fun. But we can only be a truly evolved society when we are completely indifferent about whether these entertaining couplings involve consenting adults of the same or different sexes.