Christ Defended Against Charges of Homosexuality

By The Associated Press

LONDON-The Archbishop of Canterbury this week defended Jesus Christ against an Anglican vicar's suggestion that Jesus might have

been a homosexual.

Canon Hugh Montefiore, vicar of Great St. Mary, Cambridge, said of Jesus: "Women were his friends, but it is man He is said to have loved."

The Anglican archbishop then issued a statement saying:

""There is no evidence whatever to support Canon Montefiore's reported ideas. Christians believe that

Christ's dealings with both men and women were those of a perfect man.”

Canon Montefiore, addressing a modern churchman's conference in Oxford, said the striking fact of Jesus' life was that he remained unmarried, and marriage was all but universal in the Middle East of his time.

The canon said men who did not marry either could not afford it or there were no girls-but neither of these factors need have deterred Jesus so a third factor; could have been homosexuality.

Maj. Giles Lang, 70, a lay reader at the conference, said of Canon Montefiore's statement: "This is a smear on our Lord. It is an unfortunate remark which could give pain to some people and ammunition to others. Our Lord would have been on equal terms with both men and women, but not in a biological sense. We are liable to underestimate His greatness if we equate Him too much with ourselves."