American gay magazine Parade this week carries an interview with Elton John, including his direct line to God.

According to rock star Elton John, Jesus was a Gay Man. It’s odd how that term has gained capital letters of late. And even odder that Elt seems able to peer back through the aeons of time and spot that Jesus Christ was one of them as my generation used to mutter sotto voce in the old days.

I can’t take this kind of twaddle seriously, and so as a diversion before the weekend arrives, I will offer you a brief anecdote. In the 1980s there was a very funny US series on British TV called Soap, about a middle-class but diabolically eccentric extended American family. It was in fact the launch-pad for the talented Billy Crystal, who played the family gay.

On confessing his orientation to Mama, Crystal told her of all the famous heroes of history who’d been gay.

“Michaelangelo was gay” Crystal’s character began, “Hannibal was gay. And Plato was gay”.

His mother looked shocked.

“Donald Duck’s dog was gay?” she asked incredulously.

It was a great telly moment. Which is more than I can say for Elton’s recruitment of The Nazarene.