Jeremy Bentham is well-known for promulgating utilitarianism.  Through this ethic, Bentham endorsed many things such as equality for women, abolishment of slavery, and opposing capital punishment.  He also applied utilitarianism when it came to sexual matters.  For example, an early work defending homosexuality comes from Bentham with the argument that if the people involved are consenting and no one else is harmed by the action, then the action is morally permissible.

To give biblical evidence for this sexual ethic, Bentham wrote a piece that was never published until 2013!  The work is called “Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III.”  Obviously, he couldn’t publish any of his work on homosexuality in his lifetime, and the work itself is quite long.  However, Bentham argues that Jesus may have had a homosexual relationship with the apostle John and Bentham hints that Jesus may have been crucified because of his practice of homosexuality.  I’m in the process of reading bits and pieces of it.  Thankfully, there is a post that sketches Bentham’s piece.

As a side note, check out the eccentricities of Bentham.