This “Was Jesus gay?” truther brings up some interesting points about the religious icon’s past

He spent his adult life unmarried, chilling with the guys, and kissing them on occasion. He was a fan of making grand entrances, had a complicated relationship with his father, and planned the most famous dinner party in history. Is it truly so odd that someone, somewhere, would eventually suppose that Jesus Christ might be gay?

The folks over at Rainbow History Class aren’t railing to have the canon rewritten, but in a classic entry in their “Ancient History” TikTok series, they laid out the facts.

The video, captioned simply with “Conversation starter”, points out the ultimate nepo baby’s perpetual bachelor status, his intimacy with John the Baptist, and more as possible evidence.

@rainbowhistoryclass

Conversation starter ?? #tiktokpartner #learnontiktok #lgbtq #historytiktok #givingszn

? original sound – ? Rainbow History Class ?

They also point to the little-known, somewhat disputed Secret Gospel of Mark, a text discovered in 1958 that at one point describes Jesus spending a night with a “naked” young man. Whether this was meant to be literal or spiritual is, as much of these religious texts, up to interpretation.

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Lawmaker makes powerful point about Jesus’ attitude toward gay people

Rep. Ted Lieu made a strong point in a short speech.

Questioning Jesus’ possible heterosexuality is bound to be a controversial subject for some, but the Rainbow History Class isn’t one to shy away from difficult conversations in the name of curiosity.

Created by Rudy Rigg and Hannah McElhinney, this project came together out of a desire to dig into the possible queer positivity in our shared roots. In a new interview with Vice, the pair explain the genesis of the project.

“The inspiration really just came from our experiences in high school, or lack thereof, and realizing that we knew nothing about our community,” Rigg tells VICE.

“We knew nothing about queer people in history in general. And we only knew the really horrible, disgusting things that had happened to us too.” 

With so much of LGBTQ+ history being rooted in oppression and tragedy, this informal class is always looking to get to the bottom of something new.

And plenty of their videos are way more innocuous than putting religious figures under the microscope: they’ve examined the tradition of queer-coding in horror movies, dug into the history of homosexuality on the high seas, and explored the possible asexuality of Isaac Newton.

The subjects range from the informative to the outrageous, but always with an intention of growing and finding new, queerer interpretations of history.

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The questions have to be read to be believed.

“We just sit there and we get curious about stuff,” Rigg explains.

“Like, I wonder…where are all the trans people in electronic music? Or, you know, pirates, people love pirates. Is there anything queer about that? And then we sort of dig into it. So we just look at things and we go, was there anything queer about it? And sort of discover things from it.”

And sometimes, as with the video in questions, the response to their videos can get a little contentious.

“There’s always going to be difficult conversations to be had,” Rigg says. “The internet loves it. They love to hate and love to love.

“But in terms of people running up and shouting things across the street to me – which happens more than you’d expect – people are really grateful to be represented, whether that’s through the representation that I bring, or that Hannah brings.”

So, was Jesus gay? Was he straight? Was he a polyamorous nonbinary pansexual using he/him pronouns? When the Second Coming happens, we’ll make sure to put in an interview request with him.