BY RICHARD N. OSTLING -- The campaign to have U.S. Protestant churches accept homosexuals has taken a radical new turn with a Chicago scholar's claim that Jesus not only approved same-sex relationships, but also was involved in one.
Many will find his claims of an actively homosexual Jesus ''blasphemous,'' admits Theodore W. Jennings Jr., author of The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives From the New Testament.
Jennings heads gay and lesbian studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary, a school of the United Church of Christ. The church's Pilgrim Press published the book.
The book fits the United Church's policy of ''extravagant welcome'' toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, and the pride it takes in having ordained a pioneer gay minister in 1972. Jennings is a minister of the United Methodist Church, which officially opposes same-sex activity.
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