by Rabbi Ben Kamin, Spiritual Life Examiner

It was years ago that I heard a particularly poignant segment of the Hebrew Scripture chanted in the synagogue—the story, in the Book of Samuel—of the powerful boyhood friendship between Jonathan and David.  Jonathan was the emotional son of King Saul; David, the future king, was his companion and fast friend.  Their bond, described without restraint in the Bible, was robust:  Jonathan declares to David: “Tomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty.”

It’s hard to let pass the unfolding passionate relationship between these two young scriptural heroes.  The romantic tension they shared was reinforced by the fierce and jealous hostility felt by King Saul against David; the paranoid monarch once even threw a spear at the lad.  Jonathan so adored David that he eschewed his role as prince and gave his heart freely to his friend.  His father’s disapproval did not repress his loyalty and devotion to his amour.

Granted, there are edicts in the earlier Book of Leviticus forbidding homosexual love; this is what makes the Jonathan-David affair so remarkable.  Here is an intense saga of love, rivalry, and Oedipal complexes all being driven by the force of homosexual tenderness.  There are deep implications of Jonathan feeling “empty” when David’s chair was vacant.

The Bible does not exactly mince words about the whole thing.  In First Samuel, Chapter 20, it describes an outdoor rendezvous between the two boys: “David arose out of the place…and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed three times; and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded.”

Until David “exceeded?”  This is interpreted by some biblical critics as an explanation of David’s expressive weeping—that is, he ran out of tears.  However, the literal translation of the Hebrew is, unequivocally, “until David enlarged.”  One can have no illusions what the Bible is describing in this particular instance.   See Sorry, right-wingers, but King David was gay
Examiner.com -

American actress Sigourney Weaver hopes that her first TV movie Prayers for Bobby will help gay teens when they come out about their sexual orientation to their parents.

Weaver plays the real-life mother of tragic gay youth Bobby Griffith, who committed suicide in the 1970s after his religious parents spent years trying to ‘cure’ him.

According to the actress, Leroy Aaron’s book of the same name, from which her new film was adapted, has become a tool some gay youngsters use to help their parents come to terms with their child”s sexuality.

 See Sigourney Weaver hopes new flick will help gay teens tackle their …
Sify, India -